SC Meeting 2/27/24

001just merged with account advisors on February 1st prior to that it was and Sullivan and I was with was and Sullivan for 28 years and my focus was on Municipal Audits and government audits in school district so been doing this for a few years now um and we're happy to be here tonight just to get start to start off by thanking superintendent Director of Finance Treasurer rest of the finance team for all the cooperation and assistance that we received CL of the audit everybody was really great about getting us all the information that we needed answering all our questions and uh we really appreciated that a lot of what we do now uh and even more so since Co is we try to get the information loaded up onto our secure portal and that's you

002know something that works out well for us and I think it's also working out well for our clients um we all were kind of forced into it but it really kind of makes a l more efficient for us um school has been great in business office about uploading information for us prior to us coming out so we can kind of get our head start on things we can start looking at reports doing planning and all that stuff which is great so we really appreciate that we do the audit in a couple of different phases we do a preliminary phase and for Bo did that in early April and at that time we're coming in we're reviewing controls we're testing transactions we're uh auditing section that we can audit like the budget and Deb and things

003like that we're basically trying to get as much of a head in the year can and then we come back out for our year end work uh mid November and we're wrapping up any Loose Ends we might have from our preliminary work we're doing all of our yearend audit procedures and then we're helping to compile the audit reports that we you talked about tonight um and I want to go over some financial highlights with you before I do that I also want to just go go through some required Communications and um these are U basically from the auditing standards that we have to follow um probably not the most exciting thing but I'll try to keep it as as I can as the Auditors we're responsible for planning and Performing the AUST who obtains reasonable

004Assurance the financial statements have fa stated in all material respects and accordance with generally accepted accounting principles management is responsible for the selection of significant accounting policies you can find those in note one to financial statements there were no new accounting policies that were adopted during 2023 and the application of existing policies was consistent with what it has been in the past so nothing unusual there uh accounting estimates are an integral part of the financial statements are based on Management's knowledge and experience about past and current events and also about assumptions about future events the most significant estimates relate to the net pension liability the net other post-employment benefit liability and depreciation on fixed assets we evaluated the key assumptions and factors that are used to develop those estimates we found those to be reasonable

005in relation to the financial statements taken as a whole as far as difficulties being encountered while performing the audit happy to report we're both happy to report that we did not uh encounter any difficulties in dealing with management while trying to perform the audit audit adjustments Professional Standards defin and audit adjustment as a correction proposed correction of the financial statements that in our judgment would not have been detected except through our auditing procedures and we're happy to report that we did not have to propose any such adjustments and then the last thing relates to disagreements with management and this relates to uh matters whether or not result to our satisfaction or Rel to accounting uh reporting or auditing matters that could be significant to the financial statements or the auditor report and again we're happy

006to report that no such disagreements with management occurred so as far as the financial highlights go uh first would like to talk about your general fund fund balance that can be seen on page 14 the financial statements your fund balance in total was $976,000 of that 247,000 was assigned and 97,000 of that relates to incumbrances and then another 150,000 is excessive deficiency that was voted to fund the 2024 budget that left you with $729,000 of um unassigned fund balance and that's about 3% of your budget and that is basically um the starting point to your end calculation um and it usually approximates your end there are things can be added and subtracted to it if you have deficits and grants and you didn't get the money in by September 30th DePue will say no that's

007going to be reduced but you're basically starting with your unassigned fund balance in that calculation um general fund operating results those can be found on page 46 and this was basically your your budget to actual results so your budgetary operations resulted in a decrease of $20,000 in fund balance uh you had actually planned for $150,000 decrease by budgeting $150,000 of D and to fund the budget that was offset by a revenue surplus of $45,000 and that's mainly due to your intergovernmental revenues uh intergovernmental Revenue exceeded budget by $279,000 that mainly relates to your transportation reimbursements and your China school reimbursements and your investment income was also $115,000 over budget your actual expenditures uh came in $118,000 under budget uh and when you put that all together does have budgetary results but those results to us

008indicate that you have a sound budget process a structurally balanced budget and good budgetary controls there was no overspending and U you're budgeting conservatively enough on your revenues uh that you have a surplus there as well um you also have a school choice fund uh and this is like a reserve because the money is available for expenditure by the school committee without further appropriation at the end of the year you have $2.4 million in the fund and that's about 12% of the budget so some of the other school districts that we audit many of them have Capital stabilization funds or they might have their end closer to the max um you guys are probably I would say a little bit lower than a lot that we look at I think a lot of the ones

009that we see are closer to the maximum the 5% D that you're allow to have and then tend to have like a capital stabilization fund but you do have um a higher Reserve than we probably see in school choice so I think that kind of offsets and gives you some flexibility like we as Auditors a conservative and we you know like to see reserves and the rating agencies like to see reserves and you limited as to what you can have in your general fund because you're only allow to have 5% of your next um and so school choice is a way that you can have some money set aside for unexpected things that might come up and that's gives you some flexibility which we see is a good thing uh your other post employment benefits

010liability uh significant liability just wanted to talk about that for a minute the liability increased by $75,000 and total 16.1 million dollar at the end of the year that increases mainly just due to service cost and interest so the service cost is just additional benefits that were earned by current active employ employees and your discount rate increased slightly from 3.54% to 3.65% and that's required because you don't have enough money set aside yet to where you can start having what they call a blended discount rate um your rate is based on the 20-y year AA Municipal bond rate so you have to use that because of the level of funding that you have um once you get to a certain level then you can stop blending that the long-term expected rate of return and if

011you compare the rate that's used for your opad to the retirement system which they consider to be funded to a point where they can use their long-term expected rate of return they're using a 7% rate and as you're able to use a higher rate it can have a really big impact on your your liability uh there's something called the sensitivity analysis it's a chart within the OPB footnote disclosure and the financial statements and it shows you the impact of a 1% change on the discount rate and it's about $3 million so if you were able to increase your discount rate by 1% your op liability would go down by about $3 million and that's pretty significant when your liability is sitting at 16 million and so that's something that um you know if you were

012serious about funding the liability you might want to talk to your have an actuary about and try to find out they can give you a good idea of what level you need to get your assets up to to stop being able to increase that discount rate about that doublea Municipal bond rate and that can really have a significant impact in lowering that viability and often times it's not you know you guys are contributing pretty consistently and you're building up a balance you're just not quite near where you need to be and so that would be good information I think for you to have uh the opab liability is about 2% funded now that beeped up a little bit from 1% in the PRI year so that's some progress there which is good um your pension

013liability teachers and certain administrators qualify uh for pension can join the mass teachers retirement system which is great that liability is born by the Commonwealth and they pay what they consider to be on behalf benefits they pay on behalf of the district to fund those benefits the life ability associated with those individuals is about 30 million and the current year on behalf payments by the Commonwealth they pay two5 million on behalf of berin Boyston and for all other employees that don't qualify for Mass teachers they're in the Wester Regional retirement system that liability for Boon increased by 774 th000 during the year uh and total 4.4 million at the end of the year so that's [Music] um significantly lower than what the liability is for op middle sex is about 48% funded as of 12312

014and as I mentioned they're using a fully funded discount rate of 7.25% uh some might consider that to be on the high side but it's been approved by par the public uh agency that oversees the actual real reports and authorizes those you didn't issue any new debt during the year long-term debt you've got 12.1 million outstanding and you pay down 999,000 of principal payments and we have no short-term debt outstanding so just to summarize all of that um we were able to issue an unmodified opinion on the financial statements that's the best we can get meing financial statements are da stated in Alli respects in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles all reporting deadlines were met the information that we received was accurate we didn't knowe any internal control deficiencies that would rise to the

015level of a significant deficiency or material weakness uh and as I mentioned all of our interactions with professional incus which we always appreciate and then just a couple of other quick things we also audit your federal Awards there's a separate report that's issued on that the single audit report and that's required for any entities expending over $750,000 in a fiscal the year the district expended 1.1 million so you weren't over by much but you got up to that level um 245,000 of that was for the Child Nutrition program 488,000 was for special education 298,000 was related to Esser grants um and another 95,000 for other grants uh the special education cluster was considered a major program so that's where our testing focused around and uh we didn't have any findings question costs um or any

016internal control deficiencies so again that was another clean report best result you could get as far as that goes and then the last report is the management letter um we always like to say that this is critical in nature doesn't highlight the things that you do well but it's important to know that there's no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies reported in here there is one comment in here related to uh completing a broad risk assessment this is a comment that we put in every one of our clients management letters at some point in time especially after all the big uh Financial issues happened probably 10 or 15 years ago and uh basically what it's saying is that you you should have a formal process and you should do an initial fraud risk assessment and then

017you should have an ongoing process where you probably look at like another area of each year you just keep checking from year to year but the initial one with some of our clients I'd say probably more than half have had like another company come in and do the initial one just because of resources there been some that have decided to do it themselves but it's basically getting together with a group of people that have knowledge about the finances and the operations and trying to understand where the risks are of um you know fraud with assets and also with money and then after you've identified those areas then determining okay what controls do we have in place and then making an assessment do we think that these controls sufficient or should we have additional controls and

018then you know you're looking at things like cost benefit you don't want the cost of your controls to way the benefits that they're providing and then coming to a consensus that okay now we're comfortable you know we know where the risks are we know what controls are in place we're happy with those controls get all that documented and then presented to the school committee to sign up uh and everybody be on the same page that you know there's a comfort level with the way these different uh risks are being addressed and so that's really what that comment is and then each year you would try to incorporate like going out and visiting one of the areas that you have identified and kind of updating it making sure that people are following the processes and procedures

019that are in place it's just because you've documented what the process and procedure should be doesn't mean that someone's necessarily doing what they should be so you just want to test that and uh that was everything so if anybody has any questions be happy to take I just have one question unless anyone else does I have a question go ahead Mike you mentioned internal controls and I noticed last year's letter so June 2022 there was a comment in the letter about uh you don't express opinion on the effectiveness of the internal controls but you did notice opportunities where we could strengthen them do you then follow up this year and review that and check out anything that did happen because I noticed there was no mention of that in this year's letter um from the

020actual like opinion that's up front in the report yeah um so that was referring to the comment that I just talked about and so we did follow up on it there wasn't a lot to follow up on because so specifically what you noticed in 2022 was taken care of in 20123 so we followed up on it to see if anything had been done and it's it hasn't been addressed yet so I don't know if there's any formal plans yet but I think it's something that the district is looking into thanks so when you were talking about doing the fraud risk assessment and you mentioned that you uh work with a group of people a group of folks that knew the finances to go through all the different assets and all the different areas you're talking

021about you would come in and work with the employees of the district to go over their process yeah I mean as powers and Sullivan we never did that just because we felt like there could be some Independence issues there gotcha so they would have to be but now that you're the larger firm you could see run it up and see if it you know the independence department and see if they you know think that that is something that would be okay and if it is they have a lot of resources that could do that type of work but I would just need to confirm you know that there's no Independence issues there like through their department but it would not be you guys uh no it would probably be a different group a different team

022gotcha and but you'd be working with employees of the district to identify different areas and develop processes for internal controls which pretty much ties into what Mike was asking I did reach out to a a company you gave me a name oh Eric kiner yes okay yes yeah so we've been kind of coordinating to set something up all right great yeah okay excellent does anyone have any other questions thank you so much I really really appreciate you guys coming out tonight right thank you yeah all right next up I am wondering if the principals would mind going um so we can talk about the as web and your reports um so why don't we do Cindy would you like to go first sure oh thank you so much so first of all thank you for

023allowing me to share some of the amazing things that are happen at EES and the second thing I want to talk about is I feel like I'm going back to first grade in first grade I had to go speech services because I couldn't say my 's correctly so long story very short I paid for three sets of races for my children and it's my turn so I have very new St of invl line on so if I say my S is wrong it's only because of fair with me I just want to highlight on a couple positive things that is that are happening at thees the first thing we've discussed before about clubs and getting clubs in there for for younger kids we're still working on that but I just want to draw attention to

024some of the things the staff are doing we have things going on um during their lunchtime the BR kids in for a a reading read I want to call it a club because it's during the day during their lunch or recess they go in and work with a third grade teacher Mrs Reed and there's the first day was 30 kids giving up their recess for that not because they didn't want to go out and play in the snow but because they wanted to read the story with her uh fourth grade teacher Mrs luk is um doing a math math fun is what I want to call it with our MTH coach Joey F Joey fory and there's kids in there they started out really strong they started P back from M which kind of breaks

025my heart because M's my favorite subject but we're working on those things we do have some clubs that are um are funded but we also have some teachers stepping up we have a craft fund again it's after school teacher volunteer their time they meet one to two times a month we do have some work to get to for this and we're working on that as well that is a a goal of mine is to get them in there for young for kids and also offer some more opportunities for the kidos I'm working with John on that because I'm gonna borrow his idea at his school um two other things uh two students that attended EES one still one has since moved I received alote from desie signifying something really good about Improvement in Amic cast

026for so we are having a celebration one of the children moved we forwarded his information to him but the other one is now a fourth grade student and we are going to do a a celebratory luncheon for this child next Tuesday invited her family in invited superintendent Costello in any teacher or team member that's worked with this child because we know it's a team effort to celebrate this with her so that's happening and then we did the As web now I want to talk about as web just briefly um because it's it's an indicator of how we inform our instruction we have some good news and we have some things we need to work on but I just want to address two things that we did as a team so I met with the grade

027level teams and we talked about positives It's always important to talk about those positives there's always positive in those scores and then we talked about okay where do we need to do some work and I want to bring up two things before before I open it up to questions because I knew you have my report um the fifth grade team in combination with the as web and other inclass assessments discovered that vocabulary was a lacking skill across the board and they have come up with strategies to really work on this vocabulary every single day we might even bring it to the school level and do some fun things stay tuned for that it's in progress but they are working on their vocabulary and the teachers discovered that so that as web and other assess kind

028of drove them to that the other thing is kindergarten um looking at our kindergarten scores we want to improve them so we talked about what we can do right now the tutoring there there's more groups of kindergarteners getting that tutoring the groups have expanded some children have leveled out of there they're not getting those Services anymore what others might need them so those are some things that as gred level we came up with the teachers kindergarten teachers are progress monitoring these kids we want to see those grow the growth that they can exhibit and what we can teach them so those are some positive highlights yeah do you have any questions What's the vocabulary issue so in through their assessments they realized the kids the vocabulary didn't know C what reading or if they're they're

029talking about science and social studies the vocabulary was low kids didn't know the meaning so they really put an effort into teaching them about vocabulary daily so they're doing things during the morning meeting they're doing things during reading they're incorpor it with science and social studies as well so was that a particular grade or is it just allr fifth grade noticed that every grade level noticed a few things they could work on um but those are the two that I really wanted to mention I was very proud of what their plans are coming and going forward um do you think the Kinder I I noticed the kindergarten scores um might be an area for improvement do you think um the CL the large class sizes this is the largest class sizes we've seen at in

030kindergarten do you think that has something to do with the lower scores that we're seeing in kindergarten this year couple things with that I do think that the large class sizes impact at any level I would love to see and I know we've talked about that in other meetings uh having three across and not switching back and forth yeah so when you think about my kindergarten teachers I have one that's been there for many years but the other two are somewhat new they moved across grade levels because of that size we all know that if you teach one subject or one grade the longer you do it the better you get at it um there's been some movement there at EES as well but the other thing we noticed is like when you do the

031fall Benchmark they might ask for two sounds letter sounds you go to Winter it raises I don't know exactly what it is maybe you do but I I think it's around 25 letter sounds they have to know in that time it's a huge jump on that Benchmark okay am I right 25 so I'm looking at the report you have out there for the am webar just trying to understand the vocabulary comment for fifth grade because I look at this and I see like the fifth grade scores are the highest of all the grades they're doing great yeah like I'd be more concerned about the third graders at 65 than the fifth grade at 82 so I only showed the two different grade levels of doing that just to show you that yes we're celebrating those

032successes of the fifth grade but what can we still work on there's always something to work on third grade is too they're working on that their groups have changed as well I just I knew I had five minutes so I didn't want to talk about every grade level I can yeah well no that's that's fine but that was one of my questions was they all have some really good things they're working on and how we meet as grade level they have times where they do some cross planning and I join those meetings we talk about what is the positive thing okay what do we need to work on all right did I stay within my time you're do you did great we're doing good we're doing good so far anyone else I I mean in

033general looking at both Elementary as webs that I don't we can do better right we can always do better yeah but it's it's it's an indicator of what we need to teach what are we doing well where do we need to work on those are things that drive our exr yeah that's the part that ties into the budget exactly I mean there's definitely glare looking some there's definitely glaring areas there were certain things that were just like that kindergart the kindergarten scores absolutely jumped out at me um third grade I have a child in third grade at bees so I feel that struggle um but yeah I it's good to hear the progress and that there are little things that everyone is working on to move this forward the one thing I I want to

034bring forward is and I see it with my staff my team the passion um they want these kids to do better and they bring them forward and I'll just to give you a quick example because I know we're on a Time I had a meeting today it was just um is meeting in IST to talk about um a teachers individual struggles with particular students and this child on the a web looks great green teal scores that's the highest but she Di and this teacher brought this child to an IST meeting to talk about what else can I do I'm concerned about this child dropping she's in the green she's still up there but she saw the drop that's what kind of teachers that we have at berin wison I know I can talk about and

035you'll talk about but it's passion we're going to get them there all right don't worry about the time City but I have another go ahead I'll just use one I'm right go ahead go ahead no this is important this is parents and taxpayers want to know what they getting here so just a note on the reports we see these reports all the time you send the reports like Megan asked earlier is there a way to see growth not just the I know you have the charts for growth for that particular year for that particular class but is there do you track growth for each class as they move through like Kindergarten now this year they're first now that next year there second do you have that data to show how they're growing year to year

036because this is growth from fall to winter right but can like how are this year's third graders doing compared to how they did on second grade we can certainly look at that I that's a great Point like can we get that just going forward in the reports can we get information like that because there could be a class of kid you know at some point the the learning falls on the teacher but at some point some not every kid is going to be an academic wiiz right some kids are not great test takers some you know and especially in some of these these schools where the class sizes are so small um I think it it makes a difference you could just have a group of kids that you know more kids in that group

037that third grade at bees is teeny tiny there's only 38 kids so there could be five kids that just really really struggle and that percentage is so much higher because the class is small and to Mike's Point if you tracked it year over year I'm sure you have that data they sure yeah it's just yeah to present that for the next time I I agree I think that's a good point yeah for next time definitely not something for now so for for the spring we look at it for the year picture I think that's a great idea if we could if we could incorporate that for spring am web all right if it's not too much all right awesome thank you John you ready nice we decided to stve our seats all right that's F

038poor Cy totally fine John there's no there's no school trouble right all right uh very quickly my report you've read it um I'll just highlight a couple of things we did Nate testing again this year for those of you who've been around a while um Nate which is the Nations report card assessment um this is the second time we've been chosen in the last five years the department still like coming school um we never got any results but it's a nice experience for the kids and it's a way to kind of let teachers know you know how other things work uh we've been working in Nature's Classroom uh fundraising for that that's gone very well very committed group of parents again this year they're trying to live live up to Mrs Le so far so

039good if anybody needs Donuts or those and you know what yay you know there a couple of questions yeah but yeah really solid for really solid growth um it's really questions the only question I had is on your fifth grade every other grade grew but that one dropped on math what happened ma is it more vocabulary it's not vocabulary okay it's a little bitf um vocabulary is not the issue uh sometimes it's the way it is just how things fall I think my concern you guys have heard me talk a lot about literacy literacy every third grader reading blah blah blah we've come a long way with literacy our math metrics are the next area for us to tackle because our math metrics Elementary very similar and that's an area this is why am web

040is so helpful because it will identify for you Broly where kids are struggling and it will give you the tools to kind of track interventions um you know it's not like a grade uh because especially with math when you do the math assessment it's kind of broad-based a little bit of everything so some stuff the kids have already had some stuff the kids haven't had yet but because it's compared to a national sfall that's why we keep shooting for 60% if we get above the 60th percentile as a grade we know things are going pretty well um is that know exceeding the majority of students in this National sample which we should be able to do we're an excellent School District um and so that's always our goal you see those little fluctuations from time

041to time to see it with third grade as we kind of move along that graph that you're looking for in my third grade be strugg yeah that that speaking of your 60th percentile that one there's what 30% aren't yeah does that mean that nationally some schools are teaching the things that well you said they just haven't been taught it yet why would it be they teach so they there is depending on your math program I your have philosophy certain things are taught at different times like I know in third grade um in envisions the math program we use the they do a two units on addition and subtraction like large you know more work probably but it's way off in like the eighth and Ninth units and teachers got together and they decided Well they're

042already familiar with addition and subtraction let's do that first and get them know so we do excuse me some stuff out of order um based on kind of teacher experience that's that kind of stuff you want teachers Jo so yeah it's a little bit different you know fractions come like we do fractions late um basically right before cast testing because it's going to be on there um but if they're asked about fractions in December or January they're not going to have as TR John I gotta agre you just with with the budget talks and what we need at BMS and what we can ask for we're asking for Math teachers at the high school you're talking about 60th percentile Nationwide but even like a lot of these scores you in one class 50% of them

043aren't even there so I always look at that side of it you know what do you need to get that what do you need from us to get to that side that's why we're here what do we need to put through to get more than one out of every two kids up to the basic basic level 60th per though correct me if I'm wrong hold I don't mean to interrupt you I look at 60th percentile of anything if I had 60th percentile at work I'd be fired I'd be failed like I know Cindy you mentioned earlier in this year you and John disagree on performance numbers I don't know that it was necessarily talking about this one or not but every year it's it's 60th percentile is Success where a lot of people hear 60th

044percentile is not success so just because I'm dumb explain to me why 60th per is a celebration 60th percent is not percentile yeah percen percentile is really different so if I had my nerdy kid here he would do a much better job exploring this at the 50th percentile half of the group is below that right when you get to the 60th percentile almost 80% of the kids are below that when we talk about grade level percentile not individual kids but grade level percentile that's all of the group so it's all the kids who score to the 99th and 95th and there's a ton of those but I've got kids who for a variety of reasons some of you know students who again are not prepared for are not capable of third grade man fourth grade

045fifth grade because of their their academic needs who are receiving Services through special education they're don't going to score on this T they shouldn't be expect to score what they should be what we expect is that they'll keep growing and getting better we're watching for nobody GL nobody backslides but you know I've got kids in that group in my school they like the first percent of we test everybody almost everybody um we and we test them because we need to be able to show this channel still needs help because we you know side is we've had kids in third grade scor at the 5% time who are are now scoring at the 45% time because we've got really good special Educators and you're doing a good job so when I talk about the group getting

046to the 68% time that's a big that's a big leap it's not like a grade so you're saying 80% of kids score in the 60th percen about 80% of kids fall below the 60th percenti think of that remember 80% that that that so that's okay all right so it's a bell curve bell curve yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah all right I get it so like what Megan was asking earlier what you just mentioned about how a lot of kids are in the 90s and 80s I guess how how where do they fall like not that I'm asking for individual students performance or anything but I mean half the kindergarten isn't isn't there so was half of 80% of the nation I don't know what that is but it's scoring at 52% is at or above

047the 60th percentile for kindergart so 48 all right on on the numer the math on the math yeah so that's kindergarten and first grade right this one says early numeracy kindergarten at above 60th and it lists it at 52 and the and the fall is 45 so there's a lot of growth there right but it's still a 52 so we're looking at different I'm looking at your DMs mid year data 24 final it's uh what is it it's page uh page eight it's in the drive sorry yeah yeah page eight nine on the document maybe so you get to say so now back to your kindergarten question yeah so 52% are above the 60th person CL and we'd like that number to be higher and you look across oh yeah it add their growth percent

048right they 78 yeah it's clear from there a struggling group coming in and struggling is probably a strong word that group is growing at a very accelerated rate 50% in that number that growth number 50% is typical growth so the 78 percenti for growth is a real accomplishment this is also without getting you know too deep into the leads um a group where we have some pretty some children with some pretty significant deficits um who take the test primarily because we need to show this to need services but whom we do not expect to test well I mean I I take it as what we' talked about in the policy meeting about needing more help in the classrooms and what could we get for you don't misunderstand me I will always take one but part

049of it is and you asked me before what do I need which was a terrible mistake I'm G tell you I'm way over my five minutes too you were supposed to keep traing us you've got especially in berin very good size classes by you got I will only speak for Berlin really veteran teachers really skilled professionals but what we don't have necessarily are people who are up to date in terms of how do we move more kids forward more effectively Joe fluo is forever going on and on on the math side about things that we could be doing more Project based types of things where kids get a real handson fi for mathematics he will tell you people who say I'm not good at math his response is invariably you must a bad man's teacher

050because nobody ever brags about being bad at reading and everybody's comfortable saying they're bad what I need is more time for teachers to work together so when we do that first read on C that's what I'm shooting was say my fun just about to say we're segling into that I mean I can lead a horse to water but that's all right all right this is good this is good no this is important stuff and um so thank you all right we're going to move on to Lisa okay so thank you John so so thank you for reviewing my report there's a lot to celebrate um at to Hanto and I am going to just highlight two items um for this evening we um received the results from our school climate survey um from both the

051families and um the students and um our am we testing so those are the two things that I would um like to speak on um for the school climate survey This was um a wonderful opportunity first for the um teachers to work together to create the climate survey so a group of teachers came together during professional development to create that survey and then we sent that after reviewing it we sent that out late January and then recently we um we shared it among the admin team and we just shared it with the department chair meeting on Monday and the team leader meeting today we are sharing that information surveys take a long time to digest um so we're giving them the time and space and we're going to come back and look at that but

052um I gave all of you a snapshot of the multiple choice items um there was an opportunity for families and students to provide more indepth um information um if they wanted to we did get um over a 100 respondents um in the families and for the students which for me was um a really good response to a survey um we've got not as many you know open responses but the good news to Sharon you can ask questions s um I was I think we were all very pleased with the results that students feel safe at Danto students feel welcome at Danto what they were looking for families were looking for possibly more Hands-On opportunities and more opportunities to partner particularly at the younger grades the middle school grade levels to understand um progress mon monitoring

053um with um you know throughout those grades um and I think students um and parents also wanted and this these are the types of things we're like okay so what can we do it really provides opportunity for us to have conversation is they we're saying well we would like um for good behaviors to be highlighted more which is interesting because we are continuing this the you know stagbuck and really high highlighting that and promoting that so then the question so we've implemented these things but there must be a disconnect so where is that disconnect and that's where the conversation leads so you know is it so then maybe going out and asking the students maybe at student advisory or at student council or another opportunities you know how would you feel recognized so continuing that

054conversation so really providing a foundation for future conversations and looking at ways we can continue to make sure that families feel connected and students feel supported and welcomed and um ways that we can do better and the as web testing um what has been looking at data has been focused for the the middle school and I know Renee and Sally have met with each of the grade the team level grades to look at how they are using the data and what the data means and also not just Ang butl and classroom data and how it all comes together to inform instruction and we also I know um recently also looking at the as web and thinking that there's got to be more more opportunity in this very rich format to pull different reports so um

055Sally Renee and um Joey floreno I what they all came together and looked at a variety of reports that could be accessed that is going to provide us greater um and more diverse um set of data to be able to inform instruction so we're using the in web information to you know help help you know kind of look at things we're looking at scheduling we know that our sixth grade store scores are very very strong um we we have like you know over 80% in both um M and English um meaning you know above the target of six the 60th percentile but we see that we have an intervention block in sixth grade Quest block um that doesn't exist in seventh and eighth grade so looking at scheduling and how that may impact scores and

056how we can you know move forward in a more effective way so we had um you know growth in significant growth in sixth and seventh grade um the you know pretty leveled scores in eth grade um and again you know eighth grade does not have that intervention block and so really taking an opportunity to you know sit together and use both the climate survey and the as web testing data to have some meaningful conversations about what we're doing can you Le explain St um St St oh there is yeah so an eight no uh in eth grade they do have a stag Block it's not every day um and they it has been really helpful that they're doing more um like study skill uh the students that aren't in math lab or Ela lab they'll

057be in kind of the Stag block um it's almost like every third day um it's not as consistent as like an intervention time but they are doing more proactive things like I said you know study skills um note taking you know executive functioning work but it's not strategic intervention based ones that mean right yeah it's more of like this whole class needs before they get to high school these skills does that make sense yeah which has also been great U and I think the Middle School teachers you know looking at this data and really knowing what the kids need really I think it reached out the scheduling committe saying we need some more time we need time with these kids before they get to high school to kind of close some of these Gap um

058and and again it's about the growth right and so for kids and it's not unusual to be honest to be flatter in the winter you know and that's why um but um but you know it's important to look at you know and and unfortunately middle school students no matter how much you tell them this is really important you take this seriously um it's not always [Music] terribly add something on to Lisa and ber and Mike you're bringing this up and I want to make a point about to the point about the budget right budget and bringing in the second assistant principal last year has made massive massive shifts at tont to hearing the work that they're doing in ways that they have not been able to get to in the past the fact that Renee

059is on board going focusing mainly on the middle school students right and making these kinds of changes there Richard is working up in primarily the high school and Lisa is overseeing all of that and getting into the classrooms more and I'll talk about that's the walkthrough pieces right for for my goals remarkable changes and they are a team I walk in and I all they're always working on something always always in sync with one another looking at ways to improve instruction and and ways we couldn't get to before the other piece of it is and I say Sally is over there every week was because separating that position and giving John with Elementary right he knows the math inside talking about Amwood because this is what his field and Sally knowing sixth through 12th grade

060and being able to just focus on that that's how she finally I tried for several years right to get the you're going to hear about the prog the internship program off the ground but she can be there because that's those are among her things that she really focuses on so the Dynamics of that have made a tremendous difference so to your point about adding that position I just wanted to make sure I made not to that absolutely huge huge shifts and I can I can Echo that because you know and Sally and I discussed this it is it is a tremendous difference we we're so incredibly grateful we're so incredibly grateful to have that position um to be able to have that team the teachers feel it um the students feel it um and it

061I I I can't I like there is there are no words to express the gratitude that I feel personally um but I know that I get emails and you know we get you know um staff coming up to us they feel the difference and the students feel the difference the students not like this you know we're we're just able to do you know toate what um Carol said we're just able to do so much more I I I can't believe that Sally and and they survived honestly I really can't um and and the way they were able you know the way they were able to do what they did um so we are incredibly grateful and and you know we we are we're grateful to have Sally be a part of you know these conversations

062um you know and it's just it's wonderful and that's why so L when you said you know how you I'm like great I'm I'm great I really am like I feel great and I feel Danto is in a great position that's my awesome it sounds like this stride is just I'm really excited about upcoming years I feel like we've got an amazing administrative team in place so thank you all this is awesome all right and you mind if I ask a couple question oh yeah do you have a question yeah go ahead not that I want to overlook all the positives I agree with you I think the two assistant principles if we hadn't got that last year that would have been trouble yep two things one's just kind of what's up with bathroom maintenance

063in this District right you you mentioned that in your report here we saw it at bees earlier this year so I think sometimes so there's a couple things I think but one of the things is that um sometimes students um don't clean up after themselves and sometimes we might that at and then um and so if if you have a middle school or high school um child living in your home you might notice that those bathrooms are particularly disgusting um you know there all kinds of things happen that go wrong yeah um so there's that um and then and then we've also had and Dan can speak more eloquently of this we've had um staing issues we you know it's hard to get it's hard to get cians we have had gaps with c down

064and there there's certain mainten maintenance things that have to come before and then but when the shift ends whatever's not done it's not done and then ends up being the so it's just it's been one of those years that I think we we've struggled to make sure you know hours are met um and then you know God forbid should there be snow then there's the snow removal has to happen but yeah um I have gone and taking care of that I know how to fix the overflowing urum little that you have to do no yes of course kids are disgusting my own two are definitely disgusting yes absolutely bathroom like this room right here I mean the sinks are broken the water doesn't work that's not kids being gross maybe it's kids being too hard

065on them or something but so what's the issue with Staffing why why why can't we get Staffing is it just same old we had an issue with sta right we uh now we have a cust was injury we fill the Gap now with a parttime okay so I thank you for bringing up that sink I didn't know broken so I would have I would have just all right and and Al also I think that you know just as team like I didn't know about that if we you know we used staff bathrooms I we do go through and do like a you know we sweep um bathrooms we don't necessarily use each I I just felt since you you mentioned it in your report that it's a serious thing that needs to happen wait Mike

066for a sec can we go back to the urinal so are you are you gonna be able to fix that oh yeah no there's this this little toggle inside that it it doesn't flood but it just it runs and it's a little toggle yeah so it get stuck in the vacuum right so there flapper in here a so everyone bang it can we get a plumber and and fix it or is that i' to few of them already you are you are fixing them no no I got a plumber oh you got a plumber all right oh I got you okay but I got it I think the bottom line is that you know especially for middle school students they just like to spend a lot of time in there so whether you know like

067this was part of that student survey right so like I can you know they spend a lot of time in there you call National of course they spend a lot of time in there right I I did have a Ser a more serious not so talk about performance and the grades and all that and previous conversations with teachers about mcast and how high need students I know we're talking about them later the test is they they've told us in last meeting that they designed them for the kids to fail um we've had conversations about curriculum needing to look like the students we've had other issues with people assigning various levels of privilege you have a line in here on the report that a majority of students feel that yeah so a significant number of students

068did not feel as though teachers noticed when they were struggling academically how does all that that tie because I'm told just because the scores don't look great that the kids are doing fine right but here we have your report specifically saying that students don't feel like they're being noticed when they're struggling academically and which is interesting because there was and like that was to know so I put that in there because like when you look at this you know snapshots of each of the things so significant so if you actually look at the report you can see that all of the you know snapshots there's there's really no significant gaps but if there was a significant Gap that would but just prior the the the snapshot the question prior said do they do they feel

069successful so what something ridiculous like like 85% of all students that um had the survey felt like they were successful and then then you look at that they didn't feel like the teacher noticed it they were so if they were struggling with something specific but yet they feel successful so there's there's like two different things about how they are feeling about two different things and so that would be one of those things that have to be like what you know do do they raise their hand do they not feel comfortable advocating for themselves like you know what what is the cause of them not feeling that disconnect because they just answer because when you if you look at the sequence of the survey they feel good they feel like they're successful they feel like they're

070challenged it like 85% for each of those strongly agree agree and then do you feel like you know you're and then it's like you know that's the lowest one it maybe is like 60% agree it's like okay so how did they answer these and then answer that so that's part of looking at a survey it's not it's not just taking like that is but is asking yourself okay so what would that mean why why would students feel these part answer it this way but then feel as though they they would noce is it because they feel uncomfortable asking we don't know so that's that that's where it's providing Rich conversation and that's what we're going to be looking at next time so I think that's an excellent excellent question I you know it's I don't

071know if you read it sequentially but some of them were like how could they have answered it this way and then answer then you know said that so so some of it is is what we talked about some of it is just kids don't know to ask or they want things handed to them and this is a life lesson that they need to learn that after school it's not gonna be handed for them they got to step up and ask right or yeah or maybe or or maybe they don't want to stay after school and they just want the teacher to somehow magically you know I mean I don't I don't know but you're right yeah because because I would think so this came this survey came about threeyear professional development right is that yeah

072so I know from talking to Carol I mean part of teachers training a big part of it is recognizing the kids that need the help right and but our kids aren't feeling that so if you when you do have those conversations if you can update us that absolutely that be great absolutely abely thank you thank all right Sally um so you see my report it focuses on sorry I missed Janelle Sally you go and then Janelle that's okay go ahead sorry Janelle um my report focuses on a j an internship program that I've been working on developing this year in collaboration with I Rodman who is our grades 11 12 school counselor she was gonna be here today but she a her children so she's not here but I do have Kim Rosia here um

073who looked over the whole um program and um you know if you have any questions about any both us so we found that it was important to let our high school students um have opportunities to explore various occupational um environments so that they can use that information to make decisions about what they'd like to do after graduation and we already had in place um the ability to go visit um colleges three times a year with an excuse during a Junior and Senior year so we wanted to be able to offer that as job shadow program as well so through this program students would um meet with I she's gonna um discuss this with all when she me with them in the spring if this is something that and um they would then have to make

074AC meeting with her at which point they would um get all the papay that they need sort we have um an we have an application we have a consent form that needs to be sign by the parents um after they fill out the application I will take a look at it and get in touch with whoever the person would be supervising the student at the job shadow um experience and set up a meeting with them so that I can talk with them that the um the location and also um you know ask for them to fill outs um once all that is taken place I would beet with the student and they would then go ahead and you know have go ahead and do the job sh after they've done the job shadow they write

075a reflection which get signed off by the supervisor they bring it back to the school and you can have excuse abs for that so again there's um up to three at three different places if they like it's not it's not required but um for both senior year then for senior year um we were going to offer an internship program so that they could actually work in some of those envir and see if they you know that's something that they're interested in move forward so again if that's something they're interested in they would want to meet with e um there's also you know various paperwork that they would have to fill out um again an application content form I would you know look over the application again go to the site we also put together a

076contact list that we've been working on so the students are are interested in doing a job to Lear internship but they're not really sure who to contact or where to go to we were able to develop um a spreadsheet that has a of different Municipal departments from both other community close local compies and buiness for go to they can also come to us um with an idea of their own as well I would always go and check it out and and get have for um if everything goes well with that I would meet with that student and let them know that you know I would Conn Le on for them so if there was ever anything of concern at all for them I can help them with resolving that um and they would schedule with

077e um a direct study into their schedule because we have a rotating schedule so every so many days that would allow them to leave at 1:30 which they already can do for senior privileges anyway um if they meet all the requirements and there's some requirements for this too as you saw in my report so um the idea is that they would work 35 hours to throughout the year at least and that um that would earn them um 2.5 credits and some experience so weekly they would fill out reflection sheets BR in at the end of the um internship they would prepare like a summarizing presentation that they will um give to myself and I and um you know again if it was something to where like say students like three weeks into it and they

078realize this not for it's not a fit or whatever they can come to me and they could you know kind of start over you know finish the rest ofwhere else this a little idea is to see like do you like or not right so you don't want to make something really unhappy there um we're also having a career fair we had one last year and we're GNA have another one this year we love to have you Vis live if you'd like to come it's on April 4th from 8:30 to 10:30 in our auditor I mean jnas and um we have invited uh all the contacts on our contact list plus people that came last year um and we're still looking for some people um certainly um anybody knows anybody you can contact me newslet building

079a list of people but we'd like to have some more at the end of my report you can see some information that I would be sharing with the supervisors these um uh experiences that um just you know there's dues and does about what students can do at their age um and what they can't do how many hours they can work you know how late they can work in the day those kinds of things so all that information sh supervisors prior to them stting so this is you know because it's new it's it's kind of a um you know it's a new developing thing um I've spoken to some other um many districts actually that have successful programs and it definitely talks about how it's can sometimes take up to years to really evolve and but

080very right great I have two questions um I saw there were the there's the three excuse absences to go to the colleges did these three three excuse absences did they take from that or they allowed six are they allowed three total so they can have up to three at three different places per year okay so so this could so if they don't go to colleges they could use this yeah okay and then the other thing is is it past fail is someone grading this or how does it or is it just so um if they complete all the requirements which are the weekly Reflections and they do the um they summarize presentation at the end they they'll pass okay thank you U for the job there are you having trouble getting any particular area um

081you that's a good question I Le to collecting that I didn't actually ask her I know that she she had somewhat of a variety but of course we like more um I know last year we we did have some duplicat so it would be nice if we get some yeah so if you know anybody that's interested how many students do you expect to participate in the job shadow that's a great question I'm not exactly sure I mean [Music] um I will have to see you know because it's so new I'm hoping lots of them you know because it's I think it's a great opportunity um I also by the way included in the report the descriptions for the program study should be du this so I put in there so I agree with you I

082think it is a great job we already talked about the New York field sort of combining it somehow but in here it says for the juniors right they can drive to the they can drive themselves to the uh job shadow location yeah they would be out for the day so they'd be going from home it'd be out for the day right all right um but internship umor year yeah that was my question around the parking situation because I know we have issues so they have to have a car at school to do this program yeah yeah unless they I mean they can also work hours outside of school I mean they go home go we're just giving anity to get a jump start the afternoon you wouldn't want any kid to be denied this opportunity

083because we don't have a parking space for them yeah I get did anything ever come from that you were looking into that I know that we we can get a few more parking spaces yes at least yeah to we can add on yeah in the spring good the one of the groups how do I say this the municipalities are looking for students to inter as well the Off The Town Offices the fire department the police department so that's another way that students can go because they can take the bus after school and get dropped off to those locations walk so they can because I forgot who was saying to us last week the town governments really need people to to apply for positions there they're not getting right as many some folks here can speak

084to that they're not getting folks to come and do that kind of work as much anymore so if students have a chance to see what that experience is like to support the towns work for the town's highway department and so on so we need those folks it ties in again ties into the portrait of a graduate work right not everybody's going to go to Ivy Leagues and become professors or whatever they're going to do you know these these are real jobs for and keep our students here in our towns actually is job going to be anything else okay wonderful we're gonna vote later on the internship program um now we'll let Janelle and then Paul so go ahead sorry Janelle worri um so I submitted a brief report on four topics um tier Focus monitoring

085the new IEP form for the state pair of professional data that the school committee had requested as well as medication delegation I know that we're on some time constraints I'd like to highlight the new I form for a few minutes it is the um most impactful area on our students our families and our staff so for the first time in 20 years or so Massachusetts is updating its IEP form IEP stands for individual education program so students receiving special education services have an ie um it's a document and the changes to the document are really quite substantial and significant there's a lot of technical changes just by virtue that the form is very different and there's also going to be a lot of adaptive changes required to implemented the form is very intentionally focusing on

086student strengths and student Vision so it will completely change the direction of Team conversations it will change the amount of time team conversations take there's a lot of training that's happening with staff we have training sessions planned um with the F with families in the spring with CPAC um as well as looking at putting together a schedule and also to supplement the train that we'll be doing with CPAC as well um and and there are also connections um to the budget proposal as well because there are you know changes that come along with that new IEP form in terms of software all the software companies that manage IEPs are you know needing to upgrade and invest in the new form the training um there there's a lot of opportunity here for professional development and training

087and that is that goes along with the design of the new IP form and really asking teams and school districts to approach some of the topics and the conversations differently um so there's also a need there for some administrative support we anticipate that next school year when we're implementing the new I AP form and um we're we're using it to guide the process for student conversations that those meetings are going to take more time and that's going to require some administrative support to offset that time for that special education coordinator so certainly um I you know I welcome the school committee to join any of those training sessions for the new IEP Forum I know that some of the topics in my report for special education um can be unfamiliar and certainly you know be

088happy to provide additional information on any of those topics separately like a workshop format or whatever might be helpful right it's great I I that's a great thing you just brought up about school committee members may be popping in on some of the professional development so we can see um so that can be something I work with Carol to get some of the schedules and put it out to people and if people are interested they can sure yeah we've um the focus here too will be on providing training opportunities for families to come and learn the form and we'll be doing those in the evenings as well so that those are very accessible to families great does anyone have questions for Janelle Janelle I just wanted to thank you because your especially because it's such

089a different area um they're just so you break it down so that even the lay person can understand it so I want to thank you for that because it's it's really it's important information um it's a big part of our budget and you make it really easy to consume so I appreciate that thank you all right awesome thank you Paul last but not least good evening um I you also have my report it is also very brief um highlighted two things there were some changes since I did submit this um I did want to take two seconds to thank the people that I thanked in that report so I'd like to publicly thank uh um people for handling the school attending children form um and two Town folks uh Don Porter and Elie SS um

090the state we have a good handle on uh the kids that are in our district that are in our schools that are going school choice that are in school choice coming in um but private school um students we don't have a lot of data on and we rely on the towns to help provide that data because we have to provide it to the state um and so um so Eloise and Don you know did human's work to you know pour through um Census Data um that they it every year um so that they can pass that on to us and we can then in turn um report it to the state um we did um as I mentioned in the report the Civil Rights um reporting is almost always delayed at the end and sure

091enough that's what happened last week um their site basically gets overwhelmed because so people are trying to enter data um you would think at this point after this is my probably seventh or eighth time doing these submissions because they're every other year um and every time um it ends up being delayed um the good news is we were able to get ours certified yesterday so we were um able to meet the original deadline they did extend to March 18th but we were able to submit yesterday and meet the original deadine um and then the other big Chang is the website um originally it was supposed to go online last Wednesday then it was Friday then it was this Monday and now it is this Thursday and so okay I was like I don't notice that

092new missing something fingers cross were um a lot of so as I learned more and to add more content um there was there was some places where was like wait a minute I I know I asked this content to be migrated where is it and so there were some gaps in things that supposed to be moved over they fixed those um then there were some gaps where um on Friday noticed that um we had probably roughly somewhere around eight pages that were on the website but you had no way of getting to them so um there was no navigational tool within the website to get to that page so yes it was there and there was Data there but there was no way to get to them so they had to to fix that um

093they fix most of those issues um and again at this point just adding a little bit more content so hopefully on Thursday F times the CH a new website can I have a question about the website and this might um align with the um intern is this something that a student would be able to do to so we will so we will start you know again having you know setting up certain spots so again there are some pluses to this new site so for one um we can assign editing privileges but restrict publishing privileges so you could have an intern updating the content getting it all ready and then either Lisa or myself or you know an administrator then approve for publishing so um a lot of a lot ofes with the new site there

094a lot integration with multi languages there much better um integration with um ability to like you know we've had you have things on the site that um there a lot more things that you can put publishing dates on so like right now we have stuff you know like that's 8 years old God knows why it's still there but it is um much more of the content the new website can have start and end dates and um have they have a highlight date so if you want to kind of keep it in the Forefront for a week or so but you want it on for a month that's okay so but then after a month it's gone it's going to automatically disappears so a lot of plus to the new site that comes on board that

095I think you know people will appreciate so this is a student could intern through this is what I'm yeah so like in that progr sure like that could be part of you know we we have a I what they what they call our social media we have a person who kind of does some um put some stuff together already for Carol's newsletter that program going but again I look forward to that because able to distribute some of that um editing and so hopefully that will also be able just have fresher content on do you know if we're gonna try to have a coordinated calendar for the district just gonna ask that wonderful question really go to One calendar abely so the way and again I like it so like the a lot of these things

096are considered posts so um and then the individual calendars can ch choose which posting boards they pull from so like on the district calendar we could choose to have it pull events from all three schools so the district calendar could you know so if J updates something at at burin um the district calendar going to pull that in automatically so yep haven't seen it practice yet but yes the same thing happens to so like there's things that John thinks is important enough that not only does he want to share the B site but he'd like to see it pop up on the the district site it's easy enough to do all right wonderful any questions go sorry go ahead Mike any more how's the progress with getting rid of all the paper forms that parents

097need to fill out moving them online totally separate from that um but it's still work we talked about doing it through the website didn't we um it'll be done through it'll be mostly done through Power School all right any update on that or no still will work in progress I'm getting through some of the forms but okay don't we have to add power to the elementary students don't have power school yeah they do so the ab the ability would be there we would have to that would be part of of a Rolla we would have to train you know Elementary parents Elementary parents that's what I meant don't have power school we don't use power school right no don't they don't until fifth grade so the fifth grade at the end of fth grade you

098do but we have to start pushing that back okay all right anything else um I just reading through the curriculum the like the propos curriculum is that going to be available on the website as well reading through that like it I think with budget season particular it's really nice to be able to look through and say oh that's what the class is kids are taking um I didn't know you mean the program study yeah I think they put that on the school's website they do yeah not yet until I until you yeah but yes yeah because this one is not approved it's a first read tonight right once we approve it all right we're gonna move on so we're GNA bang through these subcommittee updates real quick we're gonna have Carol give us a quick

099update then we're going to take a five minute break and then we're going to get into the budget which I'd like to do at like 10 after 7 so let's give some quick subcommittee updates Jess do you have anything for the Student Success in technology I didn't have a meeting but at least it was working on the student handbook the student oh great thank you thank you so much for working on that right that's great okay budget so we're gonna get into the meet and Bones of that tonight but Julie and I met with um Nancy and Carol and one thing I just wanted to mention is that Julie and I did go over this budget with Nancy and we do we did endorse this budget so just something to keep in the back of

100your minds um Lori any update on the superintendent evaluation subcommittee um just that we're on target with our timeline Carol's going to do presentation this evening y um I will probably Jessica and I will probably meet for our next meeting or or sometime in between before May when we have to actually fill up the evaluation so we'll just update you in between there but basically it's care all right awesome awesome all right and Mike anything on policy yeah we've got three up for a vote tonight if you have questions on them we can do it then uh you first saw them in September October I think yes yep okay great all right Carol would you like to give you a report and then we'll take a quick break and then you want to catch the

101SOA presentation just you want to do Thea presentation it's a first read in case anybody had any questions I just want to make sure wait what's a first read oh the student opport report that no it's on as an agenda item right it's on as an agenda item that's first read yes yeah yeah that was in Sally's report yep did I don't know if you want to say anything further about that that's oh I'm sorry I thought it being but um it's basically this desie requires us to write act plan every years so John and I get together and they provide you a bunch of data and they ask you to pick um an area focus on in terms of um student groups and then they give you some um different um strategies to that

102they feel are good for implementation to improve some of the areas that we have concerns for so that report was written based on a template that they gave us and it has to be okay so that will be a vote for our next meeting where is said report Nicole what folder is this in is it in Sally oh all right oh yeah on the agenda as an item but it's in the folder I see it it's a student Opportunity Act plan all right this is labeled first read okay all right did anyone have any specific questions on that and if you guys you know didn't have time to because we have a ton of material on this drive we we can have we'll have time for questions on that next time okay all right great

103Carol sure take it away sure and then we'll just have the budget left so you have a copy of these of my goals to date um my progress to date I did take um into consideration the suggestion of color coding that Jessica had made I don't know if that's what you had in mind but just so you could clearly see um the connection between the progress of my goals to the specific um standards that are there um so I hope that that's helpful I did put a reflection in there as well areas that I I thought went well and things I wanted to work on just to highlight that in my instructional leadership um the opportunity to try to get into classes at the schools more often which means I have to come out of

104my office and be bogged down there and try to get in I I I talked to the admin team this week about that and said you know my job is to oversee these folks and help them do their job the principles and the curriculum folks you know and so on so for me to be able to meet with them weekly as we're doing and get in and walk with them and see what's going on in that classroom allows us to have that dialogue about what's happening there and to make improvements so it's really key for me to get in and go to go with them so that's the area I want to continue to focus on more um this half of the year I think this part of the year we've been spending learning to

105gel together it is a new team um and it's been really important one of the things that so you know all the things we've been trying to do and looking at new templates and protocols about making reports you see the change in that I hope um we we met and we rehearsed they everybody went through their report with one another so they heard what the other one's going to talk about and what I saw this time around is that they critiqued each other respectfully work on this but you may need to say that that's a trust that was built up in this team and I'm just so proud of that so that takes time to build those relationships and I think now now we get into the work that we have been doing the work

106but I think that this is now we're in a really good space to continue that together so that's the area and instructional um leadership uh I I don't know where else I can go as far as around town feel like where's Waldo tonight and all those other dates if you i' say if you need you to do more but I'm GNA say no I'm not doing it um and then the last part of it is really the area I I know I want and needing to focus on we're all learning about the budget process particularly for Regional School Districts and that's how I've been utilizing my mentor um that you met Sheila and she's been so helpful in fact we're going to meet uh talk this week about um where we're at with the budget

107and and any help that she can give us and give to me moving forward with that any questions on my goals to date you want me to do thank you for doing such a good job documenting like night and day wonderful this is it helps us make our job so much easier you have no idea we want to change the evaluation model we didn't realize we just needed to change the content that we were given and you've gone above and beyond Carol mhm it really is quite I told you it's really what it should be I just and it helps me keep track of what I'm doing so it's kind of a win-win for both of us very grateful and I Lisa and Jessica have not done the evaluation yet but it will be a

108nice first time for them to evaluation with this so thank you and I appreciate that feedback I think that we I showed lauia first drough Ru rough draft I called it and it was like colors all over I'm like this is looking weird so I adjusted it and that um a question came up about the March conferences you know we are trying something different we have work very hard with the bbea to come up with a new idea for a spring celebration of learning I think parents want to know what's what look what's going on in the classrooms you meet with the teachers in the fall there's always opportunities through the year to again set up conferences but the the this period of time is to go in and see your child's work see the

109progress to date go in and look around and see the kinds of learning that's happening in the classroom that that we felt was a missed opportunity in the past um we've been working we met several times with with members of the BBA the representatives you see a list of all the things we agreed upon together to do I'm excited about it you know I I think the the team is excited and apprehensive and just not knowing what this is going to look like again it's something different we're trying it we talked about this during negotiations if it doesn't go well we'll make adjustments we'll go down a different path but we'll never know until we try something something different so this is the work we're doing celebration of learning at the elementary schools and I'm

110blanking on the student showcase right so you even if you don't have children at Tahanto and you just have an elementary see if you can work your way over here and see go into the classrooms and see what's going on pick a couple of them they do amazing things the exhibition's alone if you ever have a chance to go to exhibition here at Tanto could we take the younger kids to the high school to see the older kids work yeah you can might be beneficial for some fifth graders the principles are going to send out a notice the uh Friday to start inviting and we're really pushing the children to come come that we want them with their parents um and so if you want to come here of course we also want to Fe

111back on the showcase at so at 3:30 because we understand that families will be around involved in this process we're going to invite the fifth grade parents you know to um at 3:30 to kind of an orientation scheduling presentation great to get them settled in great and we we're sending out invitations great I'd like to do a survey afterward for the parents and just get feedback and see how this worked what your thoughts were what you learned from The Experience if it was beneficial time so and this is what came out of the last contract negotiation we asked for right right we were looking right for something to have that time to make that connection that was a piece there was like no connection with parent between parents and the schools in the spring so

112we thought we would try this idea like I said something different Co so I'm going to roll in with that and there something different so here's the moment I'm going to beg you to vote for this you this is a first read of this calendar and I can hear one person's voice now going not half days and I'm not gonna mention the name of that individual but we all know who that is don't do it he's not very smart don't do it can't vote I love have days so me too it is I realize that child care is an issue we have talked about that we're trying to problem solve some possibilities around that but this speaks to that idea of having continuity and professional development time for the teachers through the months we have

113had old-fashioned professional development with one shot deals you come in four times a year whatever full day okay you'll learn something you go home or not or you don't whatever th this is beneficial to the teachers it's beneficial to the administration because they can focus on areas like Math training over time the coaches can work with them the par professionals will get training over time right as they're learning to do areas of early literacy and Mathematics and then the other big piece of this um now I'm totally blanking is the oh it's just blanking the vertical thank you see they think for me because you know the vertical alignment there's got to be connections between the elementary and the mle high school particularly between the upper elementary and the middle school they never have time

114to get together because the Middle High School's doing their thing and we're doing our thing in the elementary level and this I know that Peter spoke about this the commitment he and John have made and they talk with one another you hear already that Joey floro has been involved in math work and looking at am web data right with the middle school we need to do more of that with the teachers one of the things that Sally did for us was pull together the list of at least some of the districts in Massachusetts where this is common common place and they are strong strong school districts they many of them have been doing this for years it's just part of the culture of what they do so while it's an inconvenience we still have the

115kids in school more because not more but they're in every day rather than taking them out full days and we're doing this over sever over many months and you see you see what that looks like on the calendar so first read questions on this at this point yes just looking through it looks like there's a it's really heavy on the Wednesdays and I didn't know it's rotating the day of the week would be better defend you know just so it's not so that came up and the with the BBA EA as well what we really realized so on the elementary level they would switch around the specials on those days so the the special wouldn't be missed all the the same special all the time Tahanto rotates its schedule anyway so that Wednesday is not

116always the same time um so that's why I think I think that we were leaning toward keeping it on the Wednesdays and it's the middle of the week too which keeps away from those kind of weekend or those Friday before the long weekend or whatever days consideration two is it is a consideration for working parents right but if the if the schools work with the rec departments in their towns idea that's a great idea too we have these shared use facilities and where we hold the PDS if it's high school no that's a great idea we were we were thinking of trying to get lists of students from tont who would be willing to babysit that background and we're looking for right Department pay something like that so we're we're we're working on that to

117try to offer opportunities for parents who need who need that child care during that time so Carol you've got two listed in March one is the conference open house the open they both listed PD and one is conference yeah one is just our early release PD and then the other is I think because we use this um for the conferences right for this so the be PD that day and the conference and the conferen but it's it's a is it a half day or a no day it's a no day no Day PD in the morning conferences conferences in the afternoon this this year but it's yellow I think and that's theor through the year it was tough so that day so is it the 26th that's going to be a day off that'll be

118blue though okay I'll have to think about that one no it wouldn't be blue it would be yeah this blue that blue it would be the teish blue yeah I think it's because the parent teacher conference and the early relas are the same College yes they are good catch we did run that we did uh work collaboratively with the bbea too so they have looked at this numerous times um and they are I would say very supportive of doing this kind of schedule for PD so I just want to make sure we MO that we brought that forward to them already go ahead and that um are the are these mandatory for all teachers what's your attendance like at the PD days yeah absolutely because I know a couple years ago I think Jeff and

119you mentioned keeping track yeah that's why we shifted a couple things we sh we shifted away from Fridays before long weekends um that's why we Tred up more middle of the week are they allowed to use personal days uh get out of these they can yes okay they can do we discourage that absolutely yeah um but yeah car what's the difference it HS this calendar to this proposed calendar PD days mean current year current yeah the current year we have four four blue I have to go back and look a good question but we have more full days now we've broken them down here just yeah one day yes three the other thing I think it would be important to look at with this calendar for the coming year is the student hours we make

120sure we on the second page just making sure that we have the at least the minimum number of student hours time on learning time of learning and we have more than that so so it shifts the end of the school year it looks like I trying the end of school year this year it's the the 14th it's the 14th Friday be two snow days it was the 12 so this moves the 19 no the 13th still the 13th the 13th the other is the holiday honestly I like sometimes I feel like we we're getting out kind of too early I mean I love it but don't tempt yeah now that you fancy air yeah way to go we do 60° day this is good I like the calendar anyone else have questions on the on

121June 23rd should that be blue that's the day we would be getting out if we had five snow days five snow days happen just the color oh yeah last day last day for students be like the should be the yes and I was just curious what is this on the top where it says like 17 students 17 staff that's the number of days that they would go to school the number of days okay the 17 student days right 17 staff days some days are yeah okay last year we discussed um like Good Friday and the student ABS or the teacher um but the prior years data was a Friday before a break so I just he last year's dat was interesting or I don't recall sorry I just that we can yeah if You' like

122I can look into that about how many people took Good Friday off yeah like if it's a significant amount of staff we do have in the contract um religious the floating religious right right so we do have that yep in terms of sub Carol it's Megan's point about going later into June why can't we start school after Labor Day we can let's do it I guess yeah but you're you're in practicing before school starts anyway even when it's in August I think and this might be a little dated a couple decades but I think you could only practice a week from correct okay okay so athletes but what about everybody else yeah that's a huge chunk of your high school though I get that's not going to matter for elementary school I think in the

123past and this has to do with the heat in June now we're getting the H right the air conditioning that was always an issue y I think families wanted to get out in June the mcast were over the testing parents wanted to take vacation it's like six of one half do mil you start you start later which is great I mean I guess but then you know you go later and then when we run into snow days because we have to make sure we get all the days and we're pushing it to the end of June more if we get those snow days but John always talks about how important it is for kids to be in school and you talk about how you frontload the year with the important academic stuff at the beginning

124of the year more people might be willing to just take off for their vacations in June than there would be who who can't take their vacations in labor day you know what I mean so if you've got a vacation for the last week of August now you've got to miss those first few important days of school versus the days in June you might miss are after mcast they after all the testing so it's less of a burden to miss one thing just that pops into my mind is that because in this area so many schools have shifted Camp weeks and you know just not just parents wise right like school you know I do notice that camp Weeks end like that third week of August right just so for parents and child care that you

125know it's kind of since it's been such a shift and mass over you know college that's just something to think I would love coming backer but you know I think we have to be conent at the age back and so um to H there are certain classrooms that are very very very warm and um there's there is essentially I mean there's a system but it's not you don't have Central it's not Cal this building doesn't have Cal right like chillers or something yeah yeah so some of the classrooms are very very hot in June very hot so well but they're colder in a pretty warmemorial iau it Memorial I think it's all right so what are we going to do it is pretty hot in August if I remember there's definitely the weather is definitely

126changing we're getting less snow days the weather's hot in June and August um so it's definitely something to think about but um that's I'd like to keep it this way but if you feel differently I don't care I love SN I love snow days I days I don't know what we start till the end of all right it's an interesting point it's an interesting point um all right so why don't we take that why don't we talk about that uh and then we'll let's talk take that offline Carol let's chat that why don't you talk with your administrative team offline and then about that about it Mike all right uh Carol did you want to talk about the msba for one second and then we're having a TW minute bathroom break and then we're banging

127through the budget okay you need to let me you need to vote to let me submit the msba statement of interest for the roof everyone understand what it is it's very straightforward we're applying for a grant from the state to pay for the roof through bees we will not get 100% we might get 30% it's a long shot it could be years off but we're putting in but we're putting it in and we it requires a school committee vote I'm going to read a statement Nicole has it for me I'll do that after all right let's take a two-minute break and then we're coming back at 10 after all right that is that's two minutes go ahead two minutes you got two minutes I told you want know TR to get you to the same

128place it allows me you guys don't even have to take a vote for you could just say authorize me I gu you guys not but keeping in mind that at least % overse could [Music] agre each of their schools 7 all right let's geted yeah [Music] went twice first one and the second one [Music] all right all right guys we're gonna get started back up all right let's roll you ready Kyle all right so am I am I on all right guys so we're gonna get started back up Kim is gonna take so oh last week we had we had met about the unionization of the par professionals and we need to have a vote on that tonight so Kim has we have talked about the committee the need for the committee to recognize the

129unionization of the PA of professionals or the committee to do nothing which would not be the preferable option because then there's different consequences so Kim has another option for us that she has researched and found and wants explain it to us because we do have to vote on this tonight I think this new option is the most preferable so I'm going to let her take that away five minutes and then we'll jump into the budget perfect thank you very much than youim so much if each of you who participated last week was last week of the week before we had a discussion two weeks ago in a meeting wow time flies about the mass Teachers Association filing a petition to organize the par professionals the par professionals are currently organized in what they call a

130unified group so it's sort of it's an informal labor union but it is a labor union so they that unified group had 30 days to file what they call a motion to intervene meaning we would like to continue to be on the table and considered as a union going forward that would then create any election that occurs with a union it would allow the unified group to participate that unified group did nothing so as far as I'm aware they didn't file um any kind of motion to intervene so it's as what they what the law considers it it's called it they disclaim interest meaning they no longer have interest in being a unified group and so nothing happened with them the committee could still voluntarily recognize the mass Teachers Association as the new repr representative

131of the Paris or and I I said this to to Megan and to Carol I don't get a lot of new unions in the public sector they seem they're already there that's typically the issue is that everybody who wants to be in Union is already organized in this situation I decided to look at whether there's an alternative to doing absolutely nothing and just letting the train go down the the tracks on its own or affirmatively recognizing the mass Teachers Association is something in between and there is this this Doctrine called a consent election and this is what we did not talk about in a consent election the school committee would authorize me to interact with the attorney for the mass Teachers Association I would tell that attorney yes my client agrees that there should be

132an election but there will be one in other words with a voluntary recognition there's no election it just means that that Union automatically becomes the bargaining representative of the Paris there was some discussion I think Mike brought it up like well how do we know if they actually support this and I said well we know that by the paperwork filed with the Department of Labor Relations it says on there that at least 50% of the of the people who could be in the union voted for it or submitted a card in in in favor of that and the agency of the state has to look at that and so we we take it for face value that there is that many people who signed a card is this is this something to be discussed in

133open meeting or is this no this is fine no that's fine but this this intermediate situation means you're authorizing an election to go forward which allows those pair of professionals who are ultimately going to be allowed to vote in the election to actually vote and what does that mean it means that people who submitted a card and said I support I support iport they're all going to vote sometimes we have determined through looking at data that people either change their mind about the card that they submitted or they submitted it because they felt a little pressured by other people to get them to submit the card but if there's in a in an election and and a union election is always by secret ballot there's different ways to do it I'll get to that quickly

134but each person who's eligible to vote will vote in secret ballot so they can decide for themselves on the day of the election yes I'd like to be represented by them or I don't want to be represented at all and that's really what the vote is going to be about I would like to be represented by mass Teachers Association or I don't want a union at all because that other unified group is out okay so that that's what they're gonna vote on so if I you know reach across the table to opposing Council and say listen my client's fine there could be an election we'll do it this way we can agree on the method of election it could be through mail or could be on site here I think someone from the state would

135probably will come and oversee an election if there's one here um before that we will have to agree on the list of people who are eligible so it would be all the Paris but one of the other things that we talked about in our meeting was to voluntarily recognize a bargaining unit allows both parties to agree on who gets to be in the union the way the petition is written it just says par professionals and you know there are other people whose positions are like Paris but not Paris and going to be in the union or not in the union we can still go through the process of agreeing through a consent election and as a matter of fact you do have to agree who's going to be voting who votes are the people who

136are going to be eligible to be in the union so this intermediate process as I call it a consent election will honor basically what I think you know labor unions have have you know strived for for years which is to have an election right let people make that choice and you're letting them make that choice rather than just going okay we're good with the cards and we don't get to see the cards we never saw the cards or the with the official name is the showing of Interest we don't know what they look like I guarantee you there were 50% of people that said they were interested but this then gives them that opportunity they an actually vote so that would be my recommendation for the school committee is to take the intermediate route which

137is to uh vote to have me just basically um advise the mass Teachers Association attorney that you will you know go forward with a consent election does anybody have questions about that process what did you say expired the 30 days was it the prior yes so when the petition for representation was filed by the mass Teachers Association on behalf of the par professionals the existing Union the or the unified group had 30 days to file a motion to intervene in any election process that was to be had down the road in order to maintain their interest in representing that Union if they don't do anything within 30 days it's deemed to be a disclaiming interest meaning we're not interested so they don't have to affirmatively say we're not interested they can let time pass is

138deemed we're not interested interested that time has passed I think it passed uh yesterday actually that was the that's right because they filed the petition on the 26th of January they got 30 days but that would have been the weekend and the next work day was yesterday and I've I would be notified because I didn't enter an appearance in the matter and I I didn't get anything and Carol told me she I asked her to check as well she didn't get so nothing might come of this although we would be voting on night would be to authorize you to to advise the MTA that if they do step forward we want to go down the route of having a consent election meaning we want the power for professionals to have a secret ballot the right

139to have actually vote and say if they actually want to have a union or not versus just authorizing the union yep that's what it or versus doing nothing where then they can just do whatever they want they would what would happen if you did nothing is most likely there would be the election anyway that would drive an election but it would be it would require the school district to participate in a hearing to determine who's going to be eligible to vote and things of that nature whereas we would be agreeing on who's eligible to vote we don't need to have intervention by the state in that regard the state will honor the agreement reached there will be a consent agreement between the mass Teachers Association and myself on behalf of the school district and we

140will you know determine who's eligible to vote okay because I think you need like the name of each person yep that makes sense okay what do you guys think I I like the fact that they actually get to vote about it yeah I think that's the fairest way to do it I also like that it's it's a secret valot because then people are really honest I do think this is a good idea I don't and they don't feel any pressure yeah like I said I think it honors what labor unions are about meaning we tried to get people to be interested they've said they're interested but ultimately it is you know on behalf of the individual to speak and like you said if it's a secret ballot something mailed to their home you don't that

141there is pressure placed on people to vote a certain way I agree yep I realize we're not like you know the Auto Workers in Michigan but it's it's basically it's a microcosm of the same thing right yes so it's it does kind of Honor what the system is supposed to be okay what do you guys think thoughts you want to vote what do you think I agree with lri Julie and Jess I like the voting aspect of it because they might say no we don't want it and then done what do you think Mike you good I just don't understand unions enough so I don't know what I can and can't ask there are a lot as I said before this is one of the more academic areas of lab law um that you're going

142to come across it it I it's just like I said it's governed by a lot of rules and regulations okay anyone else and it also stops the hearing it it yeah prevents the hearing there won't be a hearing the time yeah regardless of what we do they're going forward with some sort of organization right we don't know did you hear what she said vote for something so they would vote to be in an organization would vote to what be independent no the op the vote will be in the union or well be represented by mass Teachers Association on no Union that's individual work yeah it would be just how they are now they have these have these unified agreements so then there would be no contract if they do nothing they have no contract no

143no if nothing is done there's going to be an election anyway there will be but the people who get to vote may be a broader group of people through having a hearing with the state because the state gets involved and the state a right they're asking for information right some of the information that they've requested is who are all the par professionals what are the job descriptions who else has work that's like the PA professionals so the state can sweep in into the process additional people and say okay we think this group of people is similar in function to the Paris we're g to add them to make them eligible to vote if we do a consent election that that's not going to happen because one of my positions will going to be you filed

144a petition to represent the Paris that's who we're talking about okay so that's the difference is that you would the the election ultimately is not going to be any different in terms of what you're voting for because as I said the unified group has now they're out of the picture if they were in the picture the ballot would be unified group Mass Teachers Association or no Union okay it I get what you're saying I get it okay all right all right so could I please have a motion to authorize Kim rosac to advise the MTA that bbrsd would like to have consent election for par Professionals in the district okay laori and Julie all in favor any opposed right I'm an i as well that motion passes thank you so much all right that's great

145okay now the main event what everyone's been here to hear let's so we're going to jump into the budget Nancy do you want to talk about food service thing first or you want to just cover all right that should be pretty straightforward yeah so real quick in the drive you'll find the Food Service bid the Food Service bid was published Monday February 19th um all proposals are due on Monday March 18th and the request for contract award will be presented to the school committee on Tuesday April all right so did anyone have any questions about that RFP just where wear in here does it talk about how we wanted our food staff to remain employed whenever this comes about yeah I couldn't find it [Music] either page 8.1 the fsmc is not sorry that again

146on page 16 C13 C13 employees new employees be hired services to be employ the Regional School District it doesn't mention anything about pay or anything for them are they going to be hit with a reduction based on whatever the company's bid might be or they just GNA nothing changes for as they are now yeah they're up for um their unified agreement is up on June 30th okay so we're meeting with them I believe it's next week yes to start okay and the the only other question I had so this is the way you decided to go forward we thought we were talking about weighing this versus hiring another internal manager and go back to where we used to be just because this went out to bid doesn't mean that this is the direction we have

147to okay it's just been posted out yeah this isn't a vat it's just like an FYI for us it's like part of her update how would that impact the budget talks that we're about to have this is revolving it's not part of the budget so if we had to hire a new manager it wouldn't all comes out of food service revolving account all right all right so let's move into the budget we've got everyone here for questions so Nancy you want to get us started I've asked Nancy not to stand up and present this 40 page PowerPoint I think we've all read it I i' just give a really you that's a great idea I'm just going to the districtwide budget itself is 10% sorry put it on the screen do you want we're gonna

148this is going out to the public but if you want to put it on the screen now I don't know if do you have that capability I need you don't need your laptop can do you have everybody here has a laptop have access to it everyone has access to it when we do the public heing so the districtwide budget overall is it's presented as a 10% increase totaling $2,177 $177,600 increase for $1 4,528 Bon Elementary has a 12% increase at $688,000 I categorized each School individually it's presented with expense categories these are categories that are presented to you with the budget updates their Administration instruction other services maintenance operations fixed charges and AO District tuitions you can find the details of each of these categories on page two major increases for each category are highlighted

149in detail within school and the detailed backup is available in the drive for your reference Capital requests are detailed on page 20 in additional Revenue sources and assessments for each town with increased amounts from fiscal 24 are covered through pages 21 through 28 and in the appendix is your enrollment history and supporting information that is my super quick overview and now we'll leave it for discussion so do you break this down anywhere between the level and above level did I miss that it is it so it's done a little differently this year mhm differently than last year so it's done by school MH these are just the additions right yeah it so it's the increases these are just the increases not the full budget no it's the full budget so like for example if you

150go you can start with DMS if you go to so this whole thing is basically just the above level all the the detail the detail yes you have your increases page five page yes and that's your increases correct and then the highlights of the increases the impression then is there a reason salaries are in here right yeah the whole budget if you open the Excel spreadsheet no I'm looking on page five of your presentation yeah yes is that not considered level service increase it it this is different than how it was done last year these are your increases from 24 to 25 by category okay and then how it was done if you go to page three those would be considered your above level on three yeah okay that's probably the best way to look

151at it those are your major large increte highlights above level so I think a few things to note um the number for the SRO we only have um page one well the SRO is throughout we Nancy included SRO and she has it for um Tanto and for um bees I think it's under um other services right yes so and this is why I'm saying we got to fine-tune some of these numbers so right before vacation we met right before the the school break we met with um we had a great budget subcommittee meeting with uh the town of Boon and the town of Berlin and we got some more information from the town so the town of Boon advised us that they the school resource officer the entire cost would have to go into the

152budget we had it broken down that we had a piece going to the police department and a piece going into our budget they want the whole thing to go through the school's budget so so would that be a part time police officer um they want the full cost just how they full cost of the vehicle the training everything yeah you at that meaning thank you so what would he what would he do in the summer for the schools still in the school budget that was how they wanted it so so did I misunderstand that so the concern was that the amount of training that they have to do would take up any time that they would actually be functioning for the so that's my question are they going to doing anywhere for the Boon Police

153Department or is it the Berlin Boon Regional School District's private Police Department no it's the intention of the police chief and I think I can speak for him saying this that he would would utilize that officer in the Summers and then holidays and the vacation but the schools would be paying 100% for that that was what we were that was what we were told by the the Boon fincom does that make sense I don't know um so I think maybe they're they just said when we brought that up they said well we were under we were under the impression that they needed X number of weeks of training and we said well during the summer they're going to be filling in and they said well does the police force even need another part-time officer so

154it was kind of like that back and forth so we can certainly try to negotiate that this was just what they had told us at the fincom meeting it was right the week before vacation right Jess yeah yeah it was like that week right before break we went to that meeting and that was how they advised us um so definitely the cost of the car and the equipment what Berlin have to say about that since they'd be paying part of it for ton exactly Berlin has not commented on that yet because this was new information these numbers are not updated in this so I would imagine that officer might fill in for some officers in Berlin during that time maybe the officer from Bo no that would never have been the original plan not the

155original plan but if the school district is paying for it is basically the scho district private it's like the school district's private police force National Guard or whoever you know 25% so I would imagine then that officer could get shared between the towns as needed we had it in there I think oh Nancy what did we we had like 25% bees and then 75% atanto which would then would be what 35% of that 75 would be but we didn't what we had it in originally was like only 80 or it was only like 50% of the cost right School versus Town yeah we put X yeah because we put the vehicle to the town we put the uniform to the town and then we had put like just did the salary 25% of the salary

156we took 25% and put it back to the town yeah regardless of what the numbers are it's gonna impact theou I just gonna say yes regardless of yes will void the completely and I it would be like if we had a teacher going over into the police department but you can't manage we couldn't I could not manage a police officer no we even know what training that yeah so that's a point that we need to negotiate yeah sorry Dan private security what the school doesn't well they I mean that probably I mean that's you're talking about security versus an SRO completely different position something absolutely yeah we did the salary based on the school days yeah so school days so what's in this number right now salary based on school days that's all that's in

157this current number it's not the actual number no that's what I'm saying these numbers need to be some of these numbers need to be fine to so what we're discussing tonight I guess the point is I don't want to nitpick over numbers because we are gonna have to go back to them if we if this committee we nitpick a little bit to understand what it is absolutely you have seen this every day of your life for the last three months unun we have not yes no I agree but what I'm saying is this number isn't correct right now or we're gonna have to go back to the towns and negotiate something with them I agree I don't think that's right I think that if John anunziata is if the police force wants to use that

158officer in the summer to fill in but the town is saying well we don't need that so that needs to be fine-tuned we got to figure that out but I guess the question tonight is do we want to have an SRO in the budget or not do we want to fight for having an SRO well if that's what we're going to have then we can probably come up with other ways to utilize that person if we're if the district is going to be paying for the whole thing then he's 100% or she's 100% committed to the district so training whatever it is working with other SRO other community members probably do maybe it's a good thing yeah but but we we then we be financing a car like how is Carol keeping track of a

159police officer their car their uniform like does it it's kind I mean we bought a truck last year this is just a car it's like a 75 police car does it have to be a police car if it's not going to be a police officer I was just going to say that valid yeah what what is the traininga it's different forro than is for a regular police offic there there's a ton of there's a lot but would we save on non police training because you have you have to train that initial meeting right like you're still trained they have to be off have to graduate they come to us as a graduate we haven't paid for that ongoing training would only be focused on SRO very true I mean I'm asking question they haven't gone

160through the police depending right because town this is where again we have to go back because towns sponsor that Police Academy Stu too right so that's that's a piece that would have to be wor that was okay that's that's where it doesn't seem to make sense that it sounds like it school would it doesn't make sense I agree with you but it sounds like it could bring different unseen opportunities to the district I don't know um I think quantifying the continuing education is important so you know the perception is that the school vacations on the summer vacations will be consumed training is that true or not right and if it's not then then that Auer would be available for the town so yeah John didn't seem to think John seemed to think that there would

161be time in that officer schedule to work for the town but the town was saying we don't need any more officers so why we don't want to pay for that through the police budget I couldn't hear in the summer they could do stuff for the schools in the summer person wanted to do that well I was actually thinking to Mike's Point about about relationship building in the summer I Used to Know officers in in other towns who did service work in the Summer with the student with students and families I mean you hire very person I'm sure there a lot of things you can do I right and I don't know how the other part to your point like I don't know how it works the oversight as far as being a police officer to

162I think that's what we're trying to there like two different pieces there's so many pieces but I guess the first question is does this committee feel that we need an us our own schools we had this forum we didn't we had some turnout I got no feedback for con other than so does this committee feel that we want to have an SRO in the schools I mean that's kind of where we are right now the town has kind of said do you guys want this Lisa survey say that they did want an SRO no oh they didn't support it well they felt safe as it is oh I thought it said that it supported all the students felt very safe and welcomed and comfortable in their current environment that's what the survey reflected is that

163students felt safe the SRO though as we learned from The Forum would be be more it would not be a security guard or a safety officer it would be more focused on kids that might need another Outlet um yep in the building so build an element of safety in the building but maybe dare program stuff like that something that Berlin has in their elementary school because they have officer goody that Boon does not have and then you know Tanto being a high school we learned most other high schools do have an SRO right in this state it does say here in in the survey that they Al that the family supported the addition of an SRO okay and the family one might be speaking to the the the students feeling safe at school just the

164piece of the SR you know the safety at school that the feelings of things that was actually one of the higher ranking they definitely yeah I me I would hope so but we're not looking at this necessar for are looking from a taxpayer standpoint though like what do the taxpayers want for the school versus what the students want my kids want myew but that's not necessarily their best interest so I wonder is there a way to put it on the warrant as a separate so people could truly vote that's a great idea and I we did speak with somebody at the coffee chat who was very supportive and did suggest that you're abely [Music] I think when we think about this we also have to we could have all kinds of thoughts around this but

165we have to be cognizant of um you know putting that job description out and having applicants that would want this job so if this person is not going to be part of a police department and might be used um for a variety of ways that we might keep thinking is useful in the summertime that might not be a job that somebody finds appropriate or something that they would want to participate in so I think we need to be really cognizant of like we could vote for this but and then to get this money or whatever and but then we're unable to hire somebody because it's a position that no one wants because they're not part of a police department and they are not part of anything well they're part of a school but they don't

166have the camaraderie there's there's a very distinct camaraderie when you are part of a police department um it it's a very different thing to take that person who's been trained in that environment and then put him in a school which is a very different go so I I think you need think about that I mean with the that has to be Revisited anyway yes why don't we go with Jess's idea yeah i' like I definitely I think that's a great idea so one of the pl plans after this meeting next week Julie and I are going to get a fincom or sorry put fin a budget subcommittee meeting on the books and again we will invite the town fincom so that they can actually actively participate I see we've got a lot of Berlin folks

167here we have Matt from Boyston um so it's already closed but the there's a placeholder for our budget right so they're just waiting on our number well in the uh the yes the budget but oh the warrant's closed to add an article for the SRO issues of things like de exclusions with a large Capital outlays you're asking for those are type of things that's why these budget numbers are needed for an earlier date that's we've been pushing for this stuff because we can't even get get our budget figured out we don't know what your numbers are even so that's why the know it's a very late process you're at right now okay all right all right so um all right let's get back on track so I I want to go through this or I

168want you guys everybody already went through it I want people to come up and say or to let me know or let everyone know what you think should stay in this and what you're if you're thinking there's stuff that should come out or if you're thinking it's lacking anything I'm looking for high level discussion so I hear you took out my classroom list supply I wanted to discuss that let discuss it all right let's discuss it why' you take it out we talked about putting it in the committee never discussed taking it out Julie and I talked about taking it out a while back when the towns came it was substantial the cost was what was like 50,000 to school or something no all told it was less than 100 total was like 80 something

169total for all three schools yeah all right so when we heard from I think Berlin was the first one that said you know try to keep it at two and a half percent and we were already way up at whatever percent we were at yeah but you didn't discuss that with the committee though we didn't discuss it with the committee so it's not that's what I'm saying this isn't set in stone this isn't like this is out for sure this is like this version we took it out but I want to hear what people think about that about putting so it's about $80,000 across the three schools so John didn't get to go through his SOA presentation but when I read that I saw the numbers of the high need students uh and one of

170your subcategories was economically challenged am I right it's more High needs but then you there was three subcategories right which are um part of the high needs gr yeah it was a disability it's a student disabilities Lang Le Financial low income yeah so we're talking about these lists that continue to grow for individual parents to support that number of students within our district is growing that was the point of your whole report that stat in there was that it's growing I think this is the anxiety that I saw this cause parents last year is to be fair it's the first time I really paid attention to it because jent usually takes care of that but the anxiety causes for what is a requirement of the schools to the students to the parents to have for

171their public education should be funded publicly if they're requiring it the the extra things that parents might want to get for their kids or or whatever whatever they want to do different color bags whatever that's fine but if a school is going to require you as a student to have a particular Supply the school should provide it go ahead I just I so I'm just thinking back to when I was in high school which was like in the Dark Ages and when I was in high school we end up notebooks they didn't give us those we have to Bringing tissues I remember things were WR well you could buy any kind of notebook you want this is you need a specific red covered half inch spiral well so but then I'm gonna go back the

172district could probably get for 10 cents but a parent might have to pay three bucks but I'm thinking even back to when I first started teaching which was over 20 years ago we had list I taught in Westford I taught in Berlin we had list in Merlin we had list in Westford the kids would go out it's been like this forever I understand your argument Mike when I look at a a thick budget like we have and the needs that we have I just feel like this isn't the time when almost everybody else does it all over the place well sounds like we're getting rid of 150,000 in SRO and but it's but it's $80,000 that we can put towards something else I understand the stress and everything it's not like it's something that people

173don't do all over the place go car you go ahead you could and there's another nearby District that the kids pay $20 and they buy invol yes and we talked about so Julie Carol and I we talked about that having an organization is that every every kid or just certain kids with needs last year you had a buy into that that was so expensive though I think it was like eight yeah but again that's another volunteer thing this is you're requ iring a parent with maybe two or three kids to spend 80 bucks a kid just for pencils and pens of a specific color and ink and there's a lot of parents who can't can't go for that or they can but they got to make a choice and it's the anxiety you you wouldn't

174believe the anxiety these people went through would you mind if I have the principal weigh in because we have talked about but so if you hear there perspective and also a possible solution for possible well I there's a solution I'm like yeah you're right and John Adams would agree with you um free and appropriate that John been free and appropriate the reality is that people are right we you know have had school is forever I think there are two things one is that in Berlin anyway we kep the list the things your kid needs at $25 and no child who can't can't do that goes about that's why there's a general Supply budget for those kids some things we just buy routinely as smile have red binder we have red those take home folders you

175for your kids yeah we buy those that's something that comes out of General supplies but every kid comes with their own a black shirt a Old Sock some of those things and then we give them a list I tell the teachers and they have to give me the shopping list this is what you're asking for this is how much it costs do parents some parents do a lot more absolutely yeah parents do a lot more they they you know you've got boxes of tissues on list you've got boxes of tissues on that list all sorts of ridiculous things that why can't the school provide paper towels and tissues for does the bilding why are they being asked why are they being asked well because so for example you know all due respect to the facilities

176manager paper towels can buy for the children don't actually wipe up any water well then buy want stop wasting your money well and that's for another time um but so there's your point is it's too expensive for them to do the basics and I think for the majority of people $25 is not a reasonable request because I'm not sure it's $25 what's that I don't recall $25 that's the limit I put on the teachers and make them show me we usually use staples as our Baseline so you know box of pencils the sharpener a Sharpie and crayons and I make them give me a stable Shar because there's a wish list that that list needs to go out through the electronic forms on the website to parents because I don't think that list comes out

177well goes out it's actually on our website the shopping with prices links you can buy from yeah okay well I mean parents can figure that out and there's a wish list too like you don't have to buy tissue soap wipes and all that stuff like that's a wish list like that's like please buy two if you can or whatever so I'm sure you're not including that in your $25 limit there's parents St that but there's parents that want to like there's parents so you should have a schoolwide wish list like parents want to do it absolutely and you should do a midyear replenish because I think there's parents that be like I'm happy to I want to help I wanna there's people that that's how they feel like they're involved so but I agree that

178there's others that there might need help it's actually there's so much that's donated donated yeah the problem with like buying stuff like some of those Vault suppliers through PTO it kind of goes to what you're saying it's tough to get the volunteers to do that and yeah it's we're already struggling it's you know in some places to get volunteer support um you know we're very blessed right now you know's been very active parent hasn't always been that way um totally yeah no yeah volunteer volunteering is fine what I'm talk we don't control the volunteers we don't control the the donations we're trying to set these kids up with the supplies they need to get educated and starting in August you know first of all there's anxiety because you can't go on your final summer vacation

179because you want to start too early these lists these lists are out of control in some cases in some cases they're reasonable I don't understand why we require a kid to have a certain particular thing the school could get it for about 880,000 parents are probably spending twice that at their prices because they can't get the bulk discounts that the school could not too much but I mean it's like 50 bucks a door or something it's it's a lot to some people we we have to go through we have a vendor WB Mason and I can I I can um attest to this I for years have gone to Target in July Target July has dollar CR so a dollar thick markers a dollar thin markers and a dollar um Crayola um pencils colored pencils

180and every year I I buy 10 10 and 10 um I for WP Mason for our general supplies $3.99 $4.99 so there's so there's a couple things there though not all parents can get there in the first week of July and if if our suppliers is not giving us the best price then find another supplier it's it's a racket I mean yeah of course yeah I agree you got to shop on the sales or like the dollar store or something like that it's probably because same thing for my office we use WB Mason sometimes we just go off to Amazon or Staples because it's just cheaper but Mike I think at the end of the day at least my perspective on this is Boon has come back and they've said okay if you guys go

181over this am we're going to have to go to an override and that amount is really really low um so Megan with all due respect to the select board members and finance committee members our job is to figure out what the schools need and the voters can decide if they want to pay for it or not if they don't then okay there's a process for that I'm not trying to to write anybody off here y but we have a duty to to get the schools what we need we had a whole long conversation about how we need extra Paris or extra teachers or extra whatever it is for these supports for the students our our job is to figure out what what do the schools need approve something that is is reasonable that we need

182you know not everything in in one year we have a whole plan to guide us through this and the taxpayers and the voters they can choose to do it it's one of the reasons why the school committee budget is such like this ahead I say while so I I completely agree with you where it has been the norm that people have bought the supplies and there there are families that struggle and we do need to help them a family can donate a case of paper towels but they can't donate a kindergarten pair of professional do you know what I mean like these are things that families can do and have done it and we should be more cognizant of the low income and try to help but I'm just thinking when we're when we're paired

183down my comment to about that it was in general the number not just no I know but I'm just saying when we're looking at when I'm looking at this list and where I see PA professionals or um special education Transportation or you know uh a math teacher I'm thinking that's so much more important than notebooks and pencils and glue sticks and that's where I'm coming that's just where I'm thinking Mike I'm not disagreeing with you I completely agree with you I'm just saying given what we have this year I think we have to be a little more um Frugal about what we want and as a taxpayer if it was me I can understand saying hey we need you know business office support or you know full-time kindergarten rep professional more so than glue sticks

184and and notebooks I'm just what's that kindergarten par G teach if the kids don't have the glue sticks Le I'll donate like a like a gift card drive to be done at the end of the year for families that might or something like that but it has to sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you stuff like that I think has to float through the PTO though yeah that's a great idea but I mean we're talking about the budget and what the schools need to teach the kids the school should provide but so like the supplies would be like 80,000 so you look at F Memorial's first other services special education cloer nurse Transportation I mean that's like 88,000 so I just want to throw we we we had this discussion and I absolutely understand what

185you're saying I think the question that's not being answered is do we have enough pencils for the kids at school so why are we buying more pencils why are we buying more P why are we buying probably need to be fixed that's the first thing I want to know Mike because I I could see how the way you're hearing this is the kids have to buy their own pencils because we can't afford to buy the pencils for I just want to make sure have this very specific yellow 7 in mechanical number Ty pencils prear okay but do we really need the kids I get we should be pay for right so that's the first question because if we don't have enough pencils and paper for the kids don't we have a bigger problem and yes

186I would absolutely sport $80,000 more to buy the pencils for the kids and pens or whatever they need and paper I think it's the I think trying to figure out the language for these lists are they suggested or we'd love to have or wish list can we have would somebody like to volunteer to get all the clipboards or all 25 you know because this is what we'll use it for but the other because that's the other thing what do you use it for do the parents know what they're using this for because we're going to do celebration of learning and we're going to be putting a portfolio together and would somebody like to donate that I just want to make sure we first of all the first question is do we have enough of the

187supplies or do we have to do the we have to do wish it all home at the end of the year yeah I have so much crap next year I just reuse we buy like 20 boxes of them and give them you know what I'm saying so that's the question honest with you at um at the Middle High School level um there are no lists that are that specific we're just like you know you should have a three ring binder you should have some paper you should have something to write with you should feel comfortable either writing with a pencil or a pen with something to write with or we'll give you one right either use your own nice pen that you like to use right or we will give you because we have enough

188to buy you a pen yeah that is but you own that and you get it for yeah those are pretty cheap no I think they need like the Texas Instruments likeing calculators you you can't do that on the iPads and the AP got three of them we can so you can't use like an iPad on the test you have to use a specific thing oh no and we don't so that's so that's another thing you have to use a specific tool to take this class but we're not going to you know we're not going to pay for it for you we have some to borrow okay but then if you buy it it's like you own it for life right well and that's the challenge because you're right that's a good example of maybe we

189need to look at developing a collection of those very highend certain things hurt me to buy a second calculator but you know at the elementary level we were T we were laughing here we do ask for certain speci tyon robot tensils because it's GNA last a long Expo Market because they're going to last long you can buy me the Crabby ones from the dollar store but they're going to be useless but do you but do we buy T hoga pencils what that they're so good why don't we buy them for the kids why are we not ordering them well because then you're going to be spending $880,000 I pencils and everything else where you drop a line that's up three bucks public education this is just here's my take on the whole thing if we

190had Unlimited Supply of money but we are being restrained and we have I get what you're saying Mike our job is to put and that's what we're doing tonight but at the end of the day to push an override through for pencils I want to push an override through because I want to fix up these buildings get a new field at Tanto I don't want to push an override through for pencils now if we're going to group it all in together and say this is the override we're putting forward but doing an override is a huge process it doesn't just involve us agreeing in I believe the select board has to approve an override for the town and then it actually goes on the ballot um so it's not something that is just uh you

191know the school committee doing in a vacuum um so my understanding in Boon is if we hit a certain amount it's going to have to go to override okay so does this number that we're being presented tonight is this under that amount no it's it's it's more than double amount so how many teachers do you have to cut to get to that number and that here we are because that is exactly where we are I was just thinking about that that is where we are from last year because we have contracted increases and we have special ed needs just like we did last year where to get to that number which I'm hearing is now $500,000 our number right now that's being presented is 1.35 million in the assessment the increase right 1.35 million is

192the increase boilson is saying 500,000 so yes we would have to cut things to get there because the increase in just the teacher salaries and the special ed Transportation which we don't have a choice we have to pay for is over that $500,000 so in order to get you know any other need we'd have to cut other things in the budget with that number now I'm hoping there's some wiggle room with that I don't know but I think that's what we need to be looking at this I don't I don't know right let's do the work Carol how many teachers do we have to cut to cut 500,000 more how much no sounds like a million no we're if we're at 1.35 million and they want us to get to 500,000 how many teachers is

193that teachers programs courses 135 what's the budget 10 10 10 teachers good from just Boon that's $850,000 talking Boon right yeah we're just talking Bo BS or tanto both so Berlin going Beed Berlin will be affected by Tanto Cuts as well okay it's 800 we're $850,000 over the limit for Boon what they want with this budget which doesn't include the full SRO cost and doesn't include supplies so yes we'd have to cut 850,000 the teacher contract increases in Boon is 117 that's just at bees the special ed transportation is another 172 there's 300,000 right there of your 500 and then if you look at Tanto the contracted increase is 327 you take 65% of that we're already over the 500,000 sorry if I'm flying numbers too fast so nany's answer is 10 teachers to cut

194what budget there's no at sorry go ahead Nancy so there is no at level well I know with the increases so like the at level with those cont cont so your best the best way for you to look at that to look at the individual Pages for the schools look at the assessment Pages like for example go to P if you go to page 10 and then you look under personnel and it says Educators Association contracted increases 11 17,7 38 that you can't change that that there that's a that's contracted there's other contracted things in here too I pa professionals but we have to change it that's I mean what else are we going to cut no you have to cut bodies you can't just say you're not getting a raise this year yeah right

195and same thing for the special ed Transportation right there's nothing we can do about it we can't be like oh we're not going to transport you we have to cut bodies special ed transportation is currently we yeah $170 of run and it's going up to over 400 a run it's still out for bid but it's going to be between 300 and 400 a run companies so we're we're in a we're going out to bid with the aset valley collaborative um and it's just it's Supply and demands it's so double Bas double more than double huge hit yeah so um I mean a $500,000 increase on a $1 13 million budget is what percent I mean that's not even we have to provide special ed or we can cut that question we have we have to

196provide the special EG tuitions transportation and everything that go with it I mean salaries are 78% of what happens if we don't provide it that's a serious question like yeah we can't pay for it the town says we can't pay for it so what happens or we have to we have to do that we have to cut maybe we have to cut teachers this is just like what we with the situ this is the situation we were in last year the difference is last year the towns had free cash and they had wiggle room with the levy capacity we used that I think they kind of were trying to tell us that last year we used that last year now we're let's cut 10 teachers which subjects are and so that's maybe we have to

197do that and then we go to an override I don't know youve got three kindergarten classes you that's we've got we've already got we've already got 22 kids for kindergarten class at bees why don't we just you end up with larger class sizes yeah yeah class 40 kids in a class right what's the number it's at 20 right now you the kindergarten class there's 62 kids in kindergarten 61 kids 63 kids so there's 21 in each kindergarten class so if you you can have 32 in each first grade class that's no big deal how you deal with it I don't think classrooms could physically fit 32 kids I have to figure it out the desks aren't all going to fit in it tables yeah how much do that cost oh we have tables you got

198a whole room full of tables over be so I mean if that that's the situation we're facing we may have to um we may have to talk about an over but that's what we're here to discuss tonight I I want to hear what all of you guys think about all this because I've been stewing on it for a couple days now it's perplexing it is is this always the case like every year well no so since Co gotten worse since Co we had a lot of Grants we grants we made a lot of you know we added the assistant principles last year and and yeah I think the schools have suffered for a long we've suffered and we're trying to the towns are also I mean you can't be we're also in this situation because

199we have explosive building it is what it is it's no one's fault it is what it is but it's not like we're sitting here and asking for crazy things we're saying we have more people that's why we have a middle school and we have two schools in middle school and high school they got so big that even as Lisa said she doesn't know how they did it before without those two administrators we long over for that we're just trying to keep up and I I think it's I think everybody's between a rock and Hardway right now that's exactly what it is which is what our consultant pretty much said to Carol and I when we laid the situation out for him he's like oh you're between a rock and a hard place um yes this

200is not an easy situation so um something else lari said okay yeah so L piggy backing off of what you said the cost to educate a student the the taxes on these these homes that we're building the taxes don't even cover the cost to educate a student let alone the police fire Road whatever the else costs the family well we also have a huge apartment complex going up right so we're growing without the revenue the commercial real estate is what we need and in Boon there's so little of it right so it's hard right so this is the situation that we're in right now so so you're saying these numbers are not the ones we're looking at these have the SRO in here well has a piece of the SRO salary just the salary just

201the salary for 185 is it 500 something no so so okay so the numbers that in here though just isn't accurate though just well it's not that it's not accurate it's just that the town has come back and said if you want an SRO you need to include everything in your budget not just the salary so what what where's that in here it's not in there yet this is all new we're throwing kind of new data at you and I believe that figure was came after our meeting Julie is what that's like yeah so add an additional 200 on top of add an additional probably 125 it was additional 125 for the vehicle and the training so if we want an SRO it's this number plus $125,000 all to Boon we're already well oh yeah

202a piece goes to yeah you're right so it would be yeah yeah but we're already over by and that's ignoring capital capital is going to be totally separate because I think that the towns try to use free cash for that they try to use cash for the capital but we have limitations in Berlin that we' we've talked about so I mean we can if you guys want to look at the capital budget now we can do that if we took the if if the SRO was taken out of the budget here and done the way J said it's going still impact our budget one way or another it's still going to be it's going to impact the school budget if it was done it would probably just be what this number is now or close

203to it because it would go back to the I was thinking the cost of the car but it sounds like it's too late to do that now anyway well I guess for burlin the warrant is closed I think the Boon warrant's closed too or no we just open last oh okay because I feel like I feel like the SRO well I mean personally if if I was Voting I would vote for it's not about me it's about it's about the T it's about the town and everything else and I feel like if we if we could possibly get that as a warrant item so the tax play payers could decide about rather than putting it into our budget and taking away from the educational pieces okay um that would be my suggest I I like

204that personally yeah what's the difference it's all coming from the same place anyway well because some people might say we're okay with what you're asking here but we don't like the SRO piece I feel like that makes it on its own and then they can decide if they want to finance that because it's so costly yeah yeah I mean so what they said at the end of the day is the levy capacity is 1.2 million so that's for the entire town of Boon that includes the police the fire everything so they've allocated $500,000 to the schools it was so whether we put I guess my point is whether we put the SRO as its own article on the warrant or if it's separate it's still going to go towards that $1.2 billion which is going

205to push us to the override I'm not I don't know that I'm against an override this year I I told Carol at first I was because it's gonna be a ton of work um there's lots of rules around it like Carol could not go out and openly campaign for this override it would be something that this committee would have to take on so there's just a lot of different things we'd have to learn it would be a lot of work on our part so the choice is put a number before the voters at town meeting that would cause that situation yep or let's just start cutting teachers yeah that's pretty much kind of not necessarily teachers but we'd have to cut stuff programs which is gonna programs people we have to cut heads I don't

206know that we have to cut right power professionals staff whatever however car that would be Carol's and the principal's decision I know Matt would you like to say something yeah yeah sure um obviously no one wants to no one wants right no Town don't want no one wants to to do that that being said there's a difference between going for an override at a level Services budget right to say look we need this to not cut 10 teachers as opposed to saying we want an override and we're going to add this this this and this it's two very different conversations yep so I don't think it's a matter of go for override or top 10 teachers I think it's what's the most responsible thing to do here for schools and for the tax right there's

207a balance in there and it's our job between the towns the three the two towns and the schools to figure that out together but I don't think it's an either should never be an either or yep decision so going to have to come to some type of compromise and figure out if we if an override makes sense we're not the only town in this position if you look around yeah I say the vast majority of towns are in a similar or will be in a similar position very soon so I think don't look at as either look at it as what's the very best we can do without pushing and pushing and and make sure that we're giving the kids what they need tax respons last year we had the at level but then plus

208the ad and the professional right yeah so like Nancy could go through and um what would that do to the district if we didn't add what we're trying to add which is Paris and special ed and Math teachers for the new graduation requirements and athletic director not financially but what would it do to the actual how far behind would it set the district well we certainly wouldn't move forward at all but we definitely I think we'd slide backward again because I think there are certain things we truly do need we need that math teacher over into Tanto that's part of new graduation requirements from the state right right right and that's that's what's happening now that's become that's mandatory to run that financial literacy program you need at least one teacher we need another teacher

209over in Boon Elementary School y that's that's a must I I one one of the things we have been looking at is what we could delay I don't want to say cut him but we could delay but it still wouldn't bring us anywhere near that number that's what I'm saying the problem yeah that's the problem is even if we delayed but we I agree I think there's certain things in here that like we just need yeah we can't go without due to State requirements and it might not be like you have to do this or you're out of compliance it's we need this or our children are going to suffer so right and then this the special ed needs as well I we can't cut to to what you're talking we can't cut those there's

210soes all kinds of so there's like special one full-time specialed teacher like hypothetically if we weren't able to hire them would that lead to out of District tuition you know and I know like we have efforts for like in the Berlin school we have the the preschool program like yes those teachers cost money but how many outo district tuitions yeah that was our conversation last year our plan to move towards more internal inhouse to save that money right so that's $15,000 for that special ed teacher at Tanto we talked about would that cause students potentially to have to go out of District if we can't have that person there's that potential it's impossible for me to attach an exact number to it um you know Lisa and I are concerned a lot of us are

211concerned about the case load numbers um for the special education teachers particularly the high school level okay um at D so you know but but it's impossible for me to connect you know that to or make a prediction about how a district placement but for sure there are correlations some but that $100,000 salary or whatever the exact number is yeah like 105 covers more than one student versus out of District it's one student two students three students whatever multiples of that correct one teacher um in this in the public school is servicing more than one student yeah so for 100 grand we get multiple students covered right give up that 100 Grand we're spending three four 500 for for example the um the athletic trainer I'm not talking the director it's very different the trainer

212athletic trainer this is recommended by the MIAA um at this point currently um it is is going to evolve into a requirement at some point but right now there are not enough of athletic trainers in the state that are certified to do the work so it cannot be a requirement so that is something that could be delayed that's $60,000 it's not a you know what I mean it's $60,000 it's but it's only 60,00 ,000 but it could easily be delayed because it's only the for football and hockey that it's required and we co-op with those particular um Sports and that's covered through you know Coop you know athletic Fe um so that that could be offset um until it's kind of figured out at the state level big things on stfy concussion assessment can I

213just yeah I was quickly looking at the numbers and if you look at page three that's all the new above level requests which we know a lot of them are in need but if you I quickly just went through each School took out the transportation because we know that's something that can't be changed so the above level for BMS and this includes the district wide in these figures is about 257,000 the above level for Boyston is about 320,000 that's no transportation and the above level for Tanto is about 515,000 with no Transportation so that kind of gives you a ballpark where you can work with and then take your ab you know whatever you want to wherever you want to go from there but if that helps you guys a little bit so like things

214like the recess a um what can we stock charging for yeah that's another thing we talked about school suppli donations have to pay $100 a year fee for school supplies and the remainder will go towards charge for charge for buses I mean everybody can't charge for transportational not in Regional not even high school not what for regional buses you can't charge for transportation even when you live uh 300t from the school sports buses but you don't have to transport I believe believe it's one or two miles we do not have to transport the kids legally but I can't remember then maybe we need to look at that and of a bus what about sports buses like that if I'm reading the transfer thing correctly like that double you're right so that is because of the

215athletic revolving our funds and athletic revolving dropped we last several years revolving was used heavily for Landscaping on the fields and it's and it's dropping significantly so we can't use it anymore for the fields well I used half I took 20 from revolving and then I added 20 how many uh school choice kids do we need through the district to cover this what what is what's that five grand a piece no I'm serious Cho we talked about that last year yeah but what do we get for school choice 5,000 I don't and it's significantly dropping dropping well it will in like the next four years oh that we're getting not oh you're talk oh we're talking about adding new school choice kids yeah yeah if you go to page 22 that kind pass out we

216talked about uh both from the high school classes up to like 100 or so roughly 90 to 100 graduating right they're all at what like somewhere in the 80s right now I think you said at the current Pace we're at by fiscal year 27 for both elementary schools will have no balance left and for Tonto we'll be down to 105,000 if we continue to spend 500 out of school choice for Tonto so it's it's dropping quickly we don't have the space for more school choice or at Boon so like for example at Boon Elementary is there any seats for school choice potentially depends on which grade definitely not kindergarten definitely possibly first um third no not without this other teacher yeah there is some potential in there but the problem is we have two third

217grade teachers two fifth grade cannot take it at this point yeah yeah apartment there's not enough room for the desks in the classroom Dan's got a room full of tables falling over me when I went through the tour oh my no those are gone go see it's all cleaned out all right okay so um all right I'm I'm thinking that I think we got to wrap this up because I just so this is where we're at so I think next steps Julie and I we got to meet we gotta get with the towns Carol Nancy we gotta we gotta get with the towns and we gotta see options um but the other thing we need to do is we need people out there if you are watching this you need to come to the public

218hearing and voice your opinion because at the end of the day lii you made the point three or four times that's what the taxpayers want so we want to hear from the parents and the taxpayers um because at the end of the day this is just an unbelievably difficult discussion and to Matt's point you know it's not an Us Versus Them situation we got to all figure out what can we do what do we need and you know if we have this amount of money what can we do with this and if we have this amount of money what can we do with that we have to figure it out the answer can't just be like we're either cutting 10 teachers or we're going for an override we have to we have to figure it

219out so um you know nothing here is there's a few things that I think Carol and the administrators looked at that they could possibly cut out it's nothing major it's not anywhere close to the 850,000 we need for Boon um when we do come back to the next conversation on this carol whatever you do decide to remove cut or delay can you can you give us an analysis of how that's going to impact yeah the plans that we have and I I want to get more information on like the override process and you know if other departments are going for an override because I feel like other departments in the town might be pushed and you know maybe it's all going to come to a head so hopefully before we meet again we'll have some

220more information yeah I don't want to just hear like oh we cut three or we delayed three things and it saved x amount I want to know it it saved x amount and it means that you're not going to have X Y and Z that we wanted to have or that we needed to have yeah all right it was nice to have page three to have price tag sure AR 100 Grand on laptops like every year for every school that's in the cap Lisa that's in the capital budget so that's not that's not included any well it's on the capital page so the towns free cash add devices to the classroom lists and then do a transfer they could use free if we cut our Capital down that's a question I mean I'm sure some

221kids would like a different type of laptop if we cut the capital down to nothing could we could some of that cash be used towards operating budget we've got the bond at Tanto we don't is there there's some but Kristen told us there was like 500,000 berin for the schools we had um if you don't mind sure go ahead Julie I'm on Berlin and also Le Aon I just started with capital planning so I don't know what the rules but Capital planning voted it's capital budget using the free cash that we did have back in January um because we finally Sol your Capital needs we are going to meet on Thursday at 6 at the burlin Town Offices Thursday at 6 okay at 6 PM um and one of the things I I guess you

222don't have time if you have a priority list out of that Capital request that would be really helpful um because Capital plan we don't have another meeting scheduled after for one is Thursday so we have to schedule yet another one question all right so out of that meeting if we could get like an amount that you're able so they're going to prioritize I think they were looking at trimming a few things off that list but yeah if you could send that to us yeah and Nan's working on that this week right the C Capital list yeah but then the other thing for big big project that leaves to the roof and I may be a bit off on this because it's again not my area of expertise but Christan has been working with this when

223she's been talking about the debt exclusion yeah which to make sure that that work wasn't Mi yep and that's the other thing too that I want to mention to the school committee is that for these Capital requests they can they talked about you know we we are going to need a roof at bees so we talked about a debt exclusion for that because that's something that we just can't ignore and we're not going to get that through um through tax dollars I thought a bond was I don't know that's that exclusion y so that's like putting it to Future years right or like spreading it out over future years you pay it off over the years what it does is it doesn't if I'm understand correctly it is a tax but only for the time

224it takes to pay off so as a taxpayer you're only paying for it for the length of whether it's five or 10 years and it doesn't affect your L exactly correct that mean it's a temporary lift to the L that's the key piece that un like an override which is permanent I mean obviously you can also have an underride your main Town's going doing that but but it's done next like permanent year over year but with a de exclusion you will bond it for like typically like buildings and that stuff you do like 20 years and it slowly goes down after 20 years that's off the books there's no longer being collected it's done if you want to go another building or something or whatever it is you need to go for another deck SC

225uh they usually us process because people know first of all something tangible because usually know something they can touch new roof new building and also they do know they go away but it's the other override talk operational expenses because that's going to be the big thing they're going okay you need right for your operational expenses this year what what's going to constrain you to your operational expenses the next year that that's why we have to plan you don't want to be going into saying me operational override every single exactly because you need to look at where things are if your you know if your plans and expenses are going beyond the growth limits of the town in terms of Revenue you know you have the very difficult thing of basically having to come and ask

226for very large overrides which will even you know and then you also fall into your situation it fails I mean where do you that's why you know was saying here you have to come up with a we have Fe somewhere in the middle so that it's not all or nothing type of scenario because you don't want to go to the town know to a vot and find out you got nothing and now you're back you know can you find something in between and sell that and Megan I just want to confirm that there is no free cash from burlin for the operating budget not not for the operating budget Kristen said it was just going to be used for Capital just for Capital we I I forget the total number but out of that five

227no yeah she told us that you were not using any free cash for operating yeah yep no thank you for cash that you're talking about when Capital voted it's capital budget it was due in January so for all the other departments they voted I think is it 300 we used between 300 and 400 that I thought she said all right the total the total that was available was around 500 and we used about 300 over right all right so we'll have to confirm that number with you guys yeah offline so Megan what is what is GNA happen long term here talking about overrides and long-term operational costs these aren't like fancy wish list like let's have the to Hall School right these are Necessities because of the growth in the town and Berlin's discussing a

22840 house roughly 40 houses 35 House housing project on like 20 acres or something which you know we've had these discussions already with Jay and whoever else is there about how many kids that's going to add just on top of this so what is the answer in the future not just this year but years ahead I don't know I I think that if we're going to do an override if we are going to do an override it has to be large enough that it's gonna account for the growth you're going to do a onetime override it has to account for the growth and yeah to all their point what just mentioned and I don't want to go tooo far down this road if we lose that and it is hard to pass an override because

229it's actually on a ballot and who goes to vote on ballots it might be a different population that's showing up to town meeting so yep exactly exactly so it could be a hard sell so um you know what happens if we put an override out and then we don't get it then yeah we we absolutely are cutting teachers that is the reality that we will be living this year well that's I'm concerned because electricity is has gone up in Boon yeah um our taxes have you like the assessments have gone up which is brought our taxes up people are stretched really thin I know and and while we have to advocate for the schools we have to be very aware of the squish that people are in right now yeah um so I I totally

230it's like it's it's just a tough place to be yep you guys did a great job with this though this this document is wonderful Nancy um and just it's outlined really nicely to very like like with Janelle's report too you can just really understand it um but it is it's tough to decide y all right so we're going to leave the budget discussion where it is we're going to work with the towns we're GNA learn some more about override and what that means we're going to see if there's any more capacity we're going to figure out what the actual free cash is so we can um clean up that capital budget and then we'll be back here in two weeks for the public forum and we really want to get as many people here as

231possible all right let's let's um bang through these last few votes okay so the budget transfers did you guys look at the budget transfers thank you guys for coming out budget transfers from fiscal year 24 by Dan thank you do anyone have any questions on the budget transfers what yes any we're just gonna do some votes so if anyone principes assistant principal please feel free yes guys Janelle sallye free call all right gonna do these very quickly all right guys does anyone have any questions about these fy2 24 budget transfers Nancy put together a spreadsheet it's been in the drive for a couple weeks now well it was it was in PDF but then it was in Excel you guys all know the document had happened thank you guys so much appreciate it I just

232had a question I don't know it's know to bring payrolls in house rather than we do an inhouse but they use Harpers as their software so to calculate payroll would be impossible to do it in-house because they need all the payroll tax laws so we have um Lisa crochet does payroll but they're using the Harper system I believe that's how teachers can like put their time off in and right the cost is right yeah that's what the cost is is because they switch to Harbor software yeah yeah we switched to Harper and it's online now we I'm sorry yeah no no she just said would it be possible to bring payroll in house I said it is in house that's not what it is yeah I said it's software that's used that people can report

233their time off and that Lisa needs to use because she doesn't know all the payroll tax laws in her head yeah so pretty much to C had a question about the translator item so it seemed like it was I don't know I guess my numbers were a little off it was 988 and it seemed to like go from 200 to, 15500 so I didn't know you know like if a state required are there any grants to help with that like I know in healthcare we do get a certain amount of reimbursement for it not not enough but I didn't know such a thing exist good question about the increasing need um not the need I understand the need of our incoming population but in terms of like maybe there's grants from a state like because

234I know Healthcare is some of it but very little of what should be but it's required too so I didn't know yeah that's a good point for us for keep an ey never seen one but do you have do you do you know of greens I've never seen one from and I know like I mean if if it's possible like I know like there at least one mom is certified translator for um Portuguese in towns I didn't know if there's any way to use the to resources like we've done it both ways Jessica and I remember we had had individuals who would do something like that either coming into meetings to translate or translating documents either way you're going to pay for that I think that's we're looking at the funding source really I think

235is what you're talking about but we're either pay that actual translator or these systems that will just translate the material which is a lot of what they use from like newsletters or documents that need to go home yeah yeah I mean right the what we're spending on on translation and interpreter Services right we're using free resources when they're appropriate um right and so the expense represents when we really need something that's professionally um Done Right perhaps like confidential document special education um a variety of other educational pieces but for sure we can keep an eye out and and see if we see anything for for transition Services no all right sorry um don't be sorry so it seemed like there was couple line items for BMS and bees I didn't see Dondo um but it

236was for nurse Contract Services and I didn't know we have part of a float nurse so I didn't know if it was outside of that or yeah that doesn't include the floa nurse because float the new float nurse is under salaries but I wasn't sure which line item you were the lines didn't match up and I didn't see anything under contracted so I was confused with that one I had line 26 so did you go off of in the drive where it says fiscal year 25 budget by school yes and which school was it for see what oh so the contracted Services IS 268 and that they're zero it's just a little and then so the 650 was off to I think they all were I'm sorry different yeah no no like talk yeah absolutely

237oh please absolutely [Music] all and as you guys look through this because please email me call me with any questions that's why I'm here so as you you know please don't hesitate must have Som merg them all one because it doesn't go up to 600 it yeah I'm sorry Google Docs are not looks like so much fun thank you so much all right budget transfers these are the fy2 24 budget transfers could I have a motion to approve the FY 24 budget transfers all right Lisa I hear a second second Julie all right any discussion on this all in favor any opposed I'm an i as well that motion passes but I have a motion to approve the Tanto internship program as presented by miss Sally tonight any discussion all in favor I any opposed

238am and I as well that motion passes I'm going to skip the next one um could I have a motion to approve the 2023 school committee annual report which you all read thank you all for your feedback that was wonderful as it is in the drive okay Julie and Jess any discussion on that thank you for all your all in favor I any opposed all right I'm and I as well that motion passes could I please have a motion to approve policy dj-1 Regional School District procurement requirements so move L Julie all right any discussion on that one yeah Le it just looked like there was some repetitive things in here like for instance it says in Black font like the chief purchasing officer May blah blah blah and then it says it again right

239underneath it in pink you know and I guess that was what the masc Yeah so so basically what the masc did is anything that was that was in Black they wanted to keep and then anything that's in purple they wanted you to add and then anything that highlighted was added by the um by Carol and nany suggestions yeah but there's some in pink and black that's the same exact thing so it's like they wanted to add it but it was already there I it might be in title oh maybe what you say yeah where's where do you see that um so okay so the right above a procurement for a supply like towards the bottom just look at the two oh oh that and I think it's in a couple places actually oh I see

240let me see let me see if the other one is like that yeah in up above a couple more paragraphs there's the the sentence the contract will be awarded I think that's twice as well right I know we'd have to go back and look because this was we did the first read in 9:26 do you want to do you want to throw this back to policy fix all all right so I made a motion it's been seconded so should I yeah we could vote against to approving it right I think they're just typos that were added twice by mistake so we can approve it to fix the typos the Poli the content of the policy was fine right all right so how do I amend it m here uh I'll make amendment to uh accept

241the policy as in the drive fixing the duplicated language yes anybody want to second that go somebody else okay Jess all right Jess all right so all in favor of that amendment I I I'm and I as well so that motion passes so then we have to vote on so there was a motion to we've amended the motion now vote on the motion all right so now we already seconded that motion so we have to vote on that original motion all right so all in favor I I hi I all right I'm an i as well so that policy passes all right so could I have a motion to approve policy EF civil rights complaint policy for Child Nutrition programs some right Lori Jess any discussion on that policy was that your policy I just

242have something really picky about it okay um I just don't know why there's so much bold why does it say you're it says you're owner on it me yeah it says Lisa may you modified it I didn't I might have highlighted something and looked at it but I didn't change it yeah the Bold will what's the question the Bold at the top of the bottom at the bottom you know where it says note and then the whole paragraph is bolded like I think I think that's bolded because it was added in okay but you're right that should not be bolded yeah and for the second note also yes both of those would be the only that's usually bolded on them is the is the top part um this is yeah this is brand new from

243the from the m masc so they're using their that's what they suggested but I'm with you I would take the Bold out as well okay I mean it's just a minor point but yeah but it does it puts your eyes to it I move to amend the policy to remove the Bold or unbold the Bold unbold the Bold yeah anybody second it second all right all right L all in favor of that Amendment thank you all in favor of the approving policy e with the amendment I I I'm an i as well that motion passes is there anything about imga Lisa before we go into that that one looks I'm was curious just in terms of like like if a kid has asthma and an allergy to that service animal all shake out usually they're

244not they're hypo allergenic aren't they service dogs the service dogs here is there's a procedure in there for that yeah covers allergies this one's another new policy by masc as well wait which one are we looking at now oh so if somebody has an allergic reaction they move the bu the animal to a different location designated by building principal or design in an alternative plan will be developed with appropriate District staff good question any other questions on that all right could I have a motion to approve policy imga service animals in schools all right Lisa second Lori any more discussion all in favor I I I'm and I as well that motion passes all right you guys have to bear with me I have to read so this is I have to read a statement

245that we have to vote on this is to allow Carol to uh submit this um statement of interest to the Massachusetts building authority and it has to be read exactly as so we're going to vote and then I need to sign it because it's due Friday tomorrow yep sorry okay resolved having conven all right so um do I have to say do I all right I would like to make make a motion resolved having convened in an open meeting on February 27th 2024 prior to the SOI submission closing date school committee of Berlin Boon Regional School District in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent this is not the language that I need to breathe for the [Applause] vote no there's the language I have to read for the

246motion this is what I have to sign after we vote yeah thank you yep that's it okay maybe I just have to please use the text below to prepare the required votes for oh it says please prepare the text below all right so I'm G to ask for a motion to approve our superintendent to submit a statement of interest to the mass building authority with the following wording resolved having convened in an open meeting on February 27th 2024 prior to the SOI submission closing date the school committee of Berlin Boon Regional School District in accordance with its Charter bylaws and ordinance ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts school building authority the statement of Interest form dated February 2024 for the Boyston Elementary School located at 200 School Street Boyston

247Massachusetts 01505 which describes and explains the following deficiencies and the priority category for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts school building authority in the future high priority roof replacement as a result of deteriorating conditions that have created major leaks at the school and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting this statement of Interest form the Massachusetts school building authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts school building authority or commits the Berlin Boon Regional School District to filing an application for funding with the Massachusetts school building authority you a second yeah [Music] okay any discussion my voice is gone I holding in there all in favor all right I'm and I as well that

248motion passes all right this is signed to 27 all right so we have our budget hearing this is the public forum in two weeks from today 5: PM in person we do our final vote on March 19th over Zoom anything else before I adjourn this meeting could I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting so second Julie Lori all in favor I I'm an i as well thank you so much we need